Snitzel’s trans-Tasman stakes double day
Melbourne 3YO Farson and New Zealand-based juvenile Summer Passage gave the sensational Snitzel his ninth same-day stakes double on Saturday, taking his tally of stakeswinners to 52.
Farson started favourite in the $200,000 MRC Autumn Classic 1800m G2 after consecutive wins at Caulfield and Moonee Valley.He kept punters happy when he took control of the race round the turn and kicked clear to score by almost two lengths from Cliff Hanger with Captain Rhett third.
Watch Farson win the MRC Autumn Classic G2.
Jockey Stephen Baster was impressed, saying afterwards, “He’s a beauty – he’s still learning and improving every time he goes around. Today we got there a little bit too soon, I didn’t want to be getting there at the top of the straight but I had no choice and to his credit he just kept hitting the line.”
Farson was a $180,000 Gai Waterhouse buy from the draft of breeder Stuart Ramsey’s Turangga Farm at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale. His stakes-winning dam Clear View is a daughter of Gallo Di Ferro (by Deputy Minister), from a family that produced New Zealand Group 1 winners So Casual & Zola almost 20 years ago.
Farson is the third stakeswinner by Snitzel for the new Waterhouse & Bott partnership after Thronum (ATC The Rosebud LR) and Sweet Redemption (ATC Festival S. G3).
Inglis Easter graduate Summer Passage extended Snitzel’s record on several fronts with a stylish defeat of Summer Monsoon & Hanger in Saturday’s $50,000 Matamata Slipper 1200m LR in New Zealand.
It was a fine effort by the colt who was second to Aim Smart (by Smart Missile) on debut on 28 January and may now cross the Tasman to see if a rather bigger Slipper fits on 18 March.
Watch Summer Passage win the Matamata Slipper LR.
Bred and offered by Ron & Deb Gilbert’s Highgrove Stud, Summer Passage was bought for $800,000 by owner Hermitage Thoroughbreds and is trained by Lance O’Sullivan & Andrew Scott. He’s the second foal out of Subsequent (by Encosta De Lago), a winning sibling of Listed winners Get To Work and Order Of The Sun, from the family of current smart 3YOs Northwest Passage and Man From Uncle.
Subsequent foaled a Snitzel filly last Spring and is in foal to him again.
Summer Passage is both Snitzel’s 23rd juvenile winner this season and his 23rd lifetime 2YO stakeswinner, as well as his first black type winner in New Zealand. He and Farson take Snitzel’s 2016/17 record to 17 stakeswinners – his best-ever season total, and it’s only February.
The next opportuity to buy a Snitzel yearling comes up on Sunday, when the first of eight colts and five fillies by the boom son of Redoute’s Choice enters the ring at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale.
