Splintex & Mr Mozart make Snitzel’s day
Splintex (black & grey silks) in full power mode at Flemington, with Away Game (black with red stars) completing a Snitzel quinella in the Bobbie Lewis Quality G2 (PHOTO: Bronwen Healy)
Forty-two days into the new season, and John Messara’s assertion that the best is yet to come for Snitzel is already looking spot-on.
The four-time Champion Sire has returned to the top of the General Sires’ Premiership with $1.8 million prizemoney and 4 stakeswinners, three of them from his 2018 crop.
Saturday’s highlights included a Flemington Group quinella and a new Listed winner among six individual stakes performers, four of them 3YO colts.
The day’s most valuable result was the Splintex-Away Game quinella in the $300,000 VRC Bobbie Lewis Quality 1200m G2. The 5YO entire and the 4YO mare, both on Snitzel’s list of million-dollar earners, produced a stirring contest on an outstanding day at Flemington, with Splintex proving slightly stronger in the closing stages.
Third Group win for SPLINTEX leading home a Snitzel 1,2 over Away Game in the Gr2 Bobbie Lewis Quality @FlemingtonVRC .
Redoute’s Choice in the pedigrees of the first 6 home.@mark_mnracing @cwilliamsjockey @ArrowfieldStud pic.twitter.com/bZA1wG3LPn
— Pedigree Update (@pedigreeupdate) September 11, 2021
Splintex (ex Acquired by O’Reilly) is raced by well-known Sydney owner-breeders and philanthropists Geoff & Mary Grimish, and like most of their horses, is named for an aspect of Geoff’s military service during the Vietnam War. Geoff explains simply, that during the Battle of Coral on Mother’s Day, 1968, “Splintex saved our lives.”
Splintex the horse has now won 7 races, including three at Group level in his 20-start, $1.1 million career and as his trainer Mark Newnham says, “He’s sound, he’s tough, he’s fast and really genuine.” A return trip down the Flemington straight during Melbourne Cup Week is now on the cards.
The Hawkes-trained 3YO colt Mr Mozart (ex Euro Angel by Rip Van Winkle) became Snitzel’s 113th stakeswinner with a classy defeat of Blue Diamond G1 winner Artorius in the $160,000 VRC Exford Plate 1400m LR.
MR MOZART is SW113 for Snitzel winning the Exford Plate (1400m) for 3yos at @FlemingtonVRC
4×4 Danzig, first foal of Gr3 Euro Angel a Rip Van Winkle 1/2 to Polish Knight & Leebaz, both Gr2wGr1p. @HawkesRacing @ArrowfieldStud pic.twitter.com/eQKhrWF0Us
— Pedigree Update (@pedigreeupdate) September 11, 2021
A debut winner and 4th in a Group race at two, Mr Mozart has now put himself on course for the Caulfield Guineas G1.
Like Splintex, he is raced by his breeders James Chapman’s Jamieson Park, David Russo, Phil Duggan, Patricia Collins, Andrew McDonald & Ron Milne. Euro Angel returns to Snitzel this Spring.
Three other members of Snitzel’s 2018 crop played their part in the 3YO features at the Australian Turf Club meeting held at Kembla Grange. In The Congo & Remarque were 2nd & 3rd in the Run to the Rose 1200m G2, and Royalzel was 3rd in the Dulcify S. 1500m LR.
Add the Group victories of Bruckner & In The Congo on 28 August, plus Group placings by Four Moves Ahead, Generation & Wild Ruler and Snitzel is once again in that familiar place: a class of his own.
