Karaka Million triumph for Charge Forward
Victory in horse-racing is often bound up with many emotions and memories, and so it proved this evening when 2YO colt Fort Lincoln ( Charge Forward -Belle Toujours by Flying Spur ) slipped through on the rail to claim the $NZ1 million ARC Karaka Million 1200m (R) LR for his owner Lincoln Farms Ltd and trainer Lisa Latta.
Pictured: Fort Lincoln as a foal at Arrowfield Stud, in the spring of 2008. (PHOTO: Katrina Partridge)
Fort Lincoln was bred by Joan Egan and her good friend Marilyn Kent from an unraced sister to the 2001 champion New Zealand 2YO they also bred together, Flying Spur’s brilliant second-crop daughter Flying Babe. Belle Toujours’ bay colt was foaled and reared at Arrowfield Stud while his dam returned to Charge Forward to conceive a full brother.
Joan and Marilyn also sent Belle Femme, a Group 2-winning half-sister to Flying Babe and Belle Toujours, to Charge Forward in 2008, and the result was a three-quarter brother to Fort Lincoln.
These two closely related colts will be presented by Curraghmore Stud as Lots 190 & 191 in tomorrow’s opening session of the 2011 New Zealand Premier Sale. Curraghmore sold Fort Lincoln at last year’s New Zealand Premier Sale for $110,000.
A third Charge Forward colt, from Ennerdale (by Singspiel), will be offered as Lot 301 by Haunui Farm on Tuesday.
Sadly, Marilyn Kent died in March 2009, and Belle Toujours was destroyed in June 2010. Mrs Egan continues to breed from about ten mares based at Legacy Lodge, the property she and her husband Peter own and operate at Te Kowhai near Hamilton in New Zealand’s Waikato region.
A son of Red Ransom from the Bletchingly mare Sydney’s Dream, Charge Forward offers a valuable outcross option for mares carrying Northern Dancer, and has a particular affinity for Flying Spur mares. Of the eight runners to date bred on this cross, four have won: G1 Headway, Fort Lincoln, Fast Forward (2 wins) and Forward Love (2 wins).
Charge Forward was himself a high-class Group-winning juvenile, and runner-up in Dance Hero’s Golden Slipper, who trained on to win the AJC Galaxy H. G1 at three.
He was Australia’s Champion 1st Season Sire of 2008/09, is currently sixth in a powerful group of Australian 3rd Season Sires and now heads the New Zealand 2YO Sires’ list with Fort Lincoln’s earnings of $558,587. Charge Forward has also been represented in 2010/11 by G1 Response, G3 Solar Charged, G1-placed winner Shrapnel and stakes-placed Andromache.
