Smart Missile’s barrage of August winners

Smart Missile has attacked the new season with a barrage of winners, most notably Special Missile, who recorded his fifth consecutive win at Rosehill on Saturday.

And he made it look easy. Settled close to the pace in the Benchmark 80 race over 1500 metres, the 4YO gelding rounded the turn just behind The Pharoah then edged closer  before jockey Blaike McDougall loosened his hold at the 250-metre mark. Special Missile made light of his 59kg and dashed clear to score by 1.3 lengths from Mapmaker and The Pharoah, cutting out the final 600 metres in 34.23.

Watch Special Missile win at Rosehill, 26 August.

A $180,000 Bill Mitchell buy for owner Kenneth Chung from the 2015 Magic Millions Sale, Special Missile was bred by Vinery Stud shareholder Greg Perry, also the breeder of Group 1-winning sisters Atlantic Jewel and Commanding Jewel. Special Missile’s dam Quiet Meadow (by Sadler’s Wells’ son El Prado) won three races in the US including a Listed event and counts Champion Sprinter Drefong and Champion 2YO Colt Action This Day among her relatives.

Trainer John Thompson said of Special Missile, “He’s a real little gutsy bugger that gives his all every time he goes around. You can’t instil that in horses and it’ll take him a long way.”

Special Missile’s win came after successes by 3YO Smartedge at Warwick Farm last Wednesday, and 4YO Malkara & 3YO Island Missile the previous Saturday, and was followed by 4YO Gadfly & 3YO Masculino, who scored on Sunday at Wyong and Cranbourne.

That takes Smart Missile’s Australian tally for August to eleven winners of 15 races, with earnings of more than $400,000 giving him an early lead on the 3rd Season Sires’ table.