A Group 1 weekend for Arrowfield graduates
Arrowfield graduate Contentment (Hussonet-Jemison by Commands) was a two-time Group 1 winner in Hong Kong. (PHOTO: Hong Kong Jockey Club)
Arrowfield has had many Group 1 weekends in its 32-year history, but few better than 6-7 May 2017 when four sale graduates by three different stallions won elite races in three countries.
Heading the quartet were Mustaaqeem & Rafeef who achieved a rare sibling Group 1 double in the SA Nursery and Computaform Sprint on Turffontein’s Champions Day. The sons of champion sire Redoute’s Choice & South African Horse of the Year National Colour were both purchased from the Inglis Easter Sale by Shadwell Stud’s master buyer Angus Gold and are trained in South Africa by Mike de Kock.
Rafeef and Mustaqeem, bred by Arrowfield in partnership with leading South African farm Klawervlei Stud, are the latest of Shadwell’s four Group 1-winning Inglis Easter graduates by Redoute’s Choice. Champion South African filly Majmu, also trained by de Kock, was a $300,000 buy from Arrowfield in 2013, and the David Hayes-trained Blue Diamond winner Nadeem was bought for $700,000 from Edinglassie’s 2005 draft.
With a new lifetime tally of 32 individual Group 1 winners, Redoute’s Choice has edged past the great US sire Giant’s Causeway (31 G1 winners) on the global Group 1 sires’ list. It’s a figure now bested only by Galileo (64 G1 winners) among active international sires.
Arrowfield’s third success on Saturday came in Adelaide when Blueblood Thoroughbreds’ $120,000 Magic Millions purchase Secret Agenda overcame a wide draw to win the Robert Sangster S. G1. She is Not A Single Doubt’s sixth Group 1 winner and his third this season after Extreme Choice (MVRC A.J. Moir S. G1) and Scales of Justice (WATC Railway S. G1).
Secret Agenda was bred by the long-standing partnership of Arrowfield, John Leaver & Alan Jones, also successful at Group 1 level with Miss Finland and her daughter Stay With Me. Arrowfield has a record that includes all five Group 1 2YO races and six Australian Guineas winners.
Not A Single Doubt is on track to match or better his career-high 2015/16 performance, with 12 winners of 18 Group & Listed Races – just three black type wins short of his total last season.|
Three new Group 1 winners were enough to make the weekend memorable, but Contentment made it spectacular with a dramatic victory in the The Champions Mile G1 at Sha Tin on Sunday evening.
Contentment was described in post-race interviews as “quirky” by his jockey Brett Prebble, but it’s not a word that matches his quality record of 10 wins, six placings and more than $6 million from 29 starts, 21 of them in Hong Kong Group company.
His breeders Paul Favretto, Tony Hodgson, Paul Rowe and David & Peter Sinn are certainly proud of the 6YO son of Hussonet and their mare Jemison, who has yearling & weanling fillies by Animal Kingdom & Dundeel, and is again in foal to Dundeel.
A $65,000 purchase by John Foote from Arrowfield at the 2012, Contentment is trained by John Size for Benson Lo Tak Wing and, with a new figure of 126, is a top five performer in Hong Kong this season.
Rounding out the weekend’s graduate results were a couple of meritorious Group 1 placings, by Kenedna (Not A Single Doubt-Miss Dodwell), runner-up in the Australasian Oaks G1, and Heavenly Blue (Snitzel-Simply Carina), third in the South African Derby G1, and a New Zealand Listed stakes win by 2YO Ardrossan (Redoute’s Choice-Miss Argyle).
