Heavenly day for Arrowfield graduates
Arrowfield filly Maid Of Heaven & Rachel King get up in the final stride to win the ATC Spring Champion S. G1. (PHOTO: Sportpix)
Jubilation broke out around Team Arrowfield at Royal Randwick after Saturday’s $500,000 Spring Champion S. 2000m G1 when Maid Of Heaven became the third Group 1-winning graduate, after Estijaab & The Autumn Sun, of the Stud’s Yearling Class of 2017.
Watch Maid Of Heaven win the ATC Spring Champion S. G1.
Earlier in the day, a fourth member of that Class, Wild Planet (Animal Kingdom-Salutations by Redoute’s Choice) won the VRC Poseidon S. LR at Flemington. He was a $280,000 Inglis Easter buy for Hawkes Racing & Andrew Williams Bloodstock and is the sixth worldwide stakeswinner for Animal Kingdom.
Wild Planet joined Amphitrite (VRC Edward Manifold S. G2) and Extra Brut (VRC Super Impose S. LR) to complete a trio of new stakeswinners on the card for Redoute’s Choice as a broodmare sire.
Watch Wild Planet win the VRC Poseidon S. LR.
Maid Of Heaven’s success is notable for several reasons. She gave trainer Mark Newnham and jockey Rachel King their maiden Group 1 victories, and she is Smart Missile’s first Group 1 winner, as well as the first Group 1 winner sold out of the Gold Riband section of the Inglis Classic Sale. Maid Of Heaven was bred by Arrowfield with Belford Productions and bought back for $60,000.
She is also only the second filly, after Yankee Rose in 2016, to win the Spring Champion Stakes in the 48-year history of the race.
Arrowfield counts 68 Group 1-winning graduates off the farm over the past 31 years – 49 of them also bred by Arrowfield. The famous “Jockey Cap over 3 conjoined diamonds” brand is carried by four winners of six Group 1 races so far in 2018: Maid Of Heaven, Estijaab, Shoals & The Autumn Sun.
Maid Of Heaven is out of the grand stakes-winning mare St. Therese (by Dehere), a half-sister to multiple Group 1 winner Planet Ruler and already the dam of Group 3 winner Mirrasalo (by Redoute’s Choice) and two other winners.
St. Therese’s 2YO colt Castelvecchio (by Dundeel) was a $150,000 purchase by Ottavio & Wendy Galletta from Arrowfield’s 2018 Inglis Classic Sale draft, and is in training with Richard Litt. St. Therese visits Panzer Division at Pepper Tree Farm this Spring.
