Snitzel’s fifth Group One 2YO winner

Snitzel is off to his usual quick season start in Australia, with $1.3 million prizemoney & 20 winners including Group winner Remarque. (PHOTO: Bronwen Healy)

Sword Of State made becoming Snitzel’s fifth Group One 2YO winner look easy with a superlative, 3.5 length victory in the NZ$200,000 ARC Diamond S. 1200m G1 at Ellerslie.

It takes his record to four wins from 5 starts, with a total winning margin of 17.5 lengths, and twice defeating the Karaka Million winner On The Bubbles at Group 3 and now Group 1 level. 

Bred by Sir Owen Glenn’s Go Bloodstock, Sword Of State is the first foal of juvenile winner In The Vanguard (by Encosta de Lago) whose Group 2 placing was achieved in Scarlet Rain’s 2016  Sweet Embrace Stakes.

The laid-back colt was bought by Te Akau’s David Ellis from the Magic Millions draft of Newgate Farm for $600,000, a figure that placed him among the dozen top-priced Snitzel yearlings of 2020.   

Group 1 winner Sword Of State, seen here winning at Matamata on 27 February, is now a $15 chance for next Saturday’s Golden Slipper G1. (PHOTO: Trish Dunell)

Sword Of State’s rapid progression since his 12 December debut has given Ellis and his trainer Jamie Richards plenty to think about over the next 48 hours, with a flight to Australia booked and next Saturday’s $3.5 million Golden Slipper G1 firmly on the table. 

Snitzel already has a Golden Slipper winner on his record (Estijaab), along with 2017 Diamond Stakes winner Summer Passage, who subsequently filled third spot behind Invader & Trapeze Artist in Snitzel’s history-making Inglis Sires’ G1 trifecta. His first Group 1 winner Sizzling, successful in the 2012 J.J. Atkins S. G1, rounds out Snitzel’s quintet of elite 2YO winners. 

The four-time Champion Sire has a stellar group of 44 yearlings in next month’s Inglis Easter Sale, including four fillies (Lots 106, 188, 257 & 370) out of Encosta de Lago mares, like Sword Of State.

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