Kiwi stakes double for Snitzel’s girls
2YO Ethereal Star (right) & 5YO Letzbeglam compiled Snitzel’s second same-day, same-track stakes double this season, after Empire Of Japan & Williamsburg at Randwick on 1 October. (PHOTOS: Trish Dunell)
Snitzel’s daughters Ethereal Star & Letzbeglam claimed two of the major prizes at Saturday’s Pukekohe Park meeting in New Zealand, taking his season tally of stakeswinners to ten.
Ethereal Star brought up a couple more statistics for her champion sire: his 129th lifetime stakeswinner and 49th 2YO stakeswinner.
The chestnut filly had to overcome a wide run without cover in the NZ$90,000 Challenge S. 1100m LR, and won with authority for trainer Andrew Forsman and owners Ben Kwok, Dr H J Poczwa & the Zame Partnership.
Ethereal Star and another Snitzel 2YO filly, stakes-placed winner Rhetorical, now head the Order of Entry for the $1 million Karaka Million RL, to be run at Pukekohe on 21 January.
The well bred, Ethereal Star, proves too strong for her rivals in the Listed Barefoot & Thompson Challenge Stakes at @PukekohePark @Forsman_Racing @bart_zame @ArrowfieldStud pic.twitter.com/Rq2AYypoPf
— TAB Racing (@TAB_Racing) November 19, 2022
Ethereal Star was bred by Lib & Katrina Petagna’s JML Bloodstock from dual Group winner & VRC Oaks G1 third Eleonora (by Makfi), herself a grand-daughter of Champion Stayer Ethereal. The filly was purchased for $600,000 from the Blandford Lodge draft at Karaka Premier by Andrew Forsman (who co-trained Eleonora) and agents Andy Williams & Bevan Smith.
Letzbeglam notched up the second Group victory of her career with a confident performance in the $110,000 Counties Bowl 1100m G3 for Cambridge Stud’s Brendan & Jo Lindsay.
Trainer Lance Noble who said, “At her best, she is a really top-class mare. Last year was a bit of a learning curve with her, just to see if she would get back to her best and now, we might want to have a bit more fun with her.”
That “bit more fun” might include a start in the $300,000 Railway G1 at Te Rapa on New Year’s Day – Letzbeglam is now quoted at $8 for that race.
Letzbeglam, the daughter of Snitzel, proves too hard to catch in the G3 @HaunuiFarm Counties Bowl @PukekohePark @CambridgeStud @ArrowfieldStud pic.twitter.com/AMeenXzgF3
— TAB Racing (@TAB_Racing) November 19, 2022
Bred by Phoenix Thoroughbred, Letzbeglam was a $280,000 buy for Cambridge Stud from the Vinery Stud draft at Magic Millions. She is the third foal out of US-bred Miss Charming (by Forestry), a winning half-sister of dual Grade 1 winner Tout Charmant. Miss Charming has a yearling colt and a filly foal by Snitzel.
Snitzel has 25 colts and 21 fillies catalogued for the 2023 edition of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale, the source of six of his stakeswinners so far this season.
