Group 3 quinella for Not A Single Doubt
No surprise to see Blueblood Thoroughbreds’ quality sprinting mare Secret Agenda win the $150,000 MRC How Now S. 1200m G3 – she was the favourite, and her first-up record is very good.
The surprise was Every Faith, who steamed home to nab second, despite a record that did not favour the course, the distance or her first campaign run. A Listed winner and Group-placed at three, she’s since won three times over 1600 metres in Melbourne and the style of her 6YO debut indicates she’s very capable of extending her record this Spring.
Both mares are daughters of Not A Single Doubt and Secret Agenda is his second stakeswinner this season, following Don’t Doubt Mamma’s VRC Let’s Elope S. G3 victory last Saturday.
Trainer Mick Price indicated after the race that Secret Agenda would target Melbourne’s excellent program of mares’ races this Spring, and that there was plenty of improvement in her.
“She’s still got her winter coat and is in between phases at the moment. It’s good that she won and she’ll definitely improve – the give in the ground was the key to her.
“She’s a little bit more relaxed than she used to be, now we’ve worked her out and can ride a race on her.”
Secret Agenda was bred by the highly successful partnership of Arrowfield, John Leaver & Alan Jones, and sent in Arrowfield’s draft to the 2014 Magic Millions Sale, where she was purchased for $120,000 by Blueblood Thoroughbreds.
Her two juvenile starts included a Moonee Valley success, but she came into her own last season, winning the VRC Red Roses S. G3 and placing three times in Group company, including the ATC Sapphire S. G2. Secret Agenda’s record now reads four wins and $431,000 from a dozen starts.
Secret Agenda is the fourth winner out of Negotiate, an unraced daughter of Red Ransom and Group 1 winner Euphoria, a grand-daughter of Denise’s Joy – who also appears as the fourth dam of Don’t Doubt Mamma.
Negotiate has not missed a beat in her breeding career. Since foaling Secret Agenda she has visited Smart Missile four times, leaving the now 3YO colt Missile Strike (placed in Sydney at his second start), a filly bought for $200,000 by Phillip Stokes at the 2016 Magic Millions Sale, a yearling colt and a colt foal born on 11 September.
Every Faith, a half-sister to Group 2 winner Alpine Eagle, has earned $334,000 from 5 wins and six placings for her owners Barry, Barbara & Rebecca Saunders and trainer Robert Smerdon.
Australia’s leading active sire of 2015/16, Not A Single Doubt is the sire of 34 stakeswinners, sixteen of them fillies including Group 1 winners Miracles of Life and Single Gaze.
Not A Single Doubt, Snitzel and their sire Redoute’s Choice have tag-teamed to put up 10 Australian stakeswinners in the first seven weeks of 2016/17 and are already eighth, first and fifth respectively on the General Sires’ table.
