While Mantastic was the highlight locally for our racing partners, a couple of well related two-year-olds racing in Europe provided the limelight for many owners over the past weekend.
Under the beautiful Deauville skies, Peronne a full brother to the G1 winner and now sire Pornichet, presented for the first time in a quality 2yo race down the straight on this beautiful course. Jumping well, then taking a sit behind the leaders, the colt sprinted quickly to win his race by over 2 lengths.
Peronne’s trainer, Nicolas Clement also trained Pornichet before he was sold to Gai Waterhouse. Nicolas has trained most of the family and was responsible for the youngster being introduced to OTI when a yearling. Being a late foal, Nicolas had indicated that Peronne would need plenty of time and was suitability impressed when the horse performed faultlessly and showed the ability of his older brother when the same age.
Nicolas will now look for a more progressive race for the colt to progress his career before preparing him for a tilt at the French Guineas in 2019.
On the other side of the English Channel on Friday night, Stormy Road, the half-sister to the current Caulfield Cup favourite, Kings Will Dream, impressed significantly in her first race start. Among the colts, she settled at the rear of the field and then unleashed a strong burst down the inside rail to get within three-quarters of a length of the winner.
Stormy Road was well named for her race on Friday night, as the heavens had broken only an hour before her race. Thus ending a two-month drought in the UK. Under conditions that would have stopped most meetings around the world, the brave little filly behaved if she’d seen it all before.
Luca Cumani will now look for another race for her prior to a decision being made on when she is transferred to Australia, where Matt Cumani will take the reins.
OTI is not known for buying yearlings, therefore it comes as a surprise to some that our 3 winners over the weekend, which included Fairlight, who also won at Newmarket on Friday night, were purchased as yearlings. Their partners all hope that they can now progress in either Europe or Australia to be topliners.