Trapeze Artist dominates in 4th Group 1 victory
Trapeze Artist won the ATC Canterbury S. G1 with a trademark display of high-rolling pace. (PHOTO: Bronwen Healy)
Two-time Champion Sire Snitzel added a 19th Group 1 prize to his stud record when last season Champion 3YO Colt Trapeze Artist won his fourth elite race, Saturday’s $500,000 ATC Canterbury S. 1300m G1.
Watch Trapeze Artist win the ATC Canterbury S. G1.
The race unfolded straightforwardly for the imposing 4YO, who was quickly sent forward from gate 6 by Blake Shinn to take up the lead at the 1000-metre point. Trapeze Artist settled beautifully and, relishing the Good4 conditions, he reeled off four sub 11-second sectionals that left all but the brilliant Arrowfield-Pinecliff mare Shoals unable to make ground on him in the final 300 metres.
It was an excellent campaign opener by Shoals, but Trapeze Artist held a 1.5 length margin at the post and his winning time of 1:14.19 is a new track record.
Shin offered a succinct summary of his race tactics on Trapeze Artist. “He doesn’t like a sit-sprint so we made it a bit of a test. How are they going to beat him? On his best he’s up there with the world’s best sprinters and he proved that today.”
The Vieira family home-bred star is trained by Gerald Ryan, whose success with Snitzel himself and with many of his progeny, including 13 stakeswinners, is a special part of the Champion Sire’s story.
Trapeze Artist (ex Treppes by Domesday) has now won 7 of his 19 starts for prizemoney of $5.5 million, a figure that he looks very capable of increasing if he seeks to win his second $2.5 million T.J. Smith S. G1 on 6 April, the first day of The Championships at Randwick.
Thanks largely to Trapeze Artist, and excellent Group placings on the same card by Redzel, Exhilarates & Luskintyre Lass, Snitzel’s Australian season earnings now exceed $18.7 million. That’s almost the same figure he’d reached at the same stage of his record-breaking 2017/18 Premiership season.
Snitzel has 37 yearlings catalogued for next month’s Inglis Easter Sale, 10 of them to be offered by Arrowfield, also the source of 7 of Snitzel’s 13 Group 1 winners: Estijaab, Snitzerland, Sweet Idea, Hot Snitzel, Heavenly Blue, Invader & Wandjina.
