'She was just an absolute crackerjack' - Freyer on Gosford winner

Written by Jessica Owers

Cover image courtesy of Racing Photos

It was a day of notable results for pedigrees on Thursday, with two juvenile feature races at Gosford and Sale. Collectively, the two races were won by a pair of smart horses representing very good Australian families.

At this time of year, many of the 2-year-olds are no longer debutants, and this was the case at Sale with the 2-year-old Deep Field colt Orion The Hunter. However, at Gosford, 2-year-old Estriella (I Am Invincible) was on debut and she proved a dominant winner.

Estriella’s field was a good one. The filly had to face the likes of Sicilian (I Am Invincible), who was second in the Listed Lonhro Plate during the summer.

With John Allen aboard, Estriella broke from barrier five and took cover off the fence. In the Gosford straight, she stalked the pace until asked for her run, after which she ambled to the lead and won comfortably by 1.39l from Sicilian, with the Snowden-trained Getty (Capitalist) in third.

The winning time was 1:04.16, the final 600 metres in 34.96s on the Good 4.

Estriella is owned by Kevin Payne, of Hitotsu fame, who purchased the filly straight out of an Arrowfield draft last year at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale. It was Ciaron Maher Bloodstock that signed the ticket at $750,000 and, by I Am Invincible, she was the third foal from the Lonhro mare Madrigals, who is a full sister to Pierro and a half-sister to Ambience (Street Cry {Ire}).

This is a very good family and, at Arrowfield Stud on Thursday afternoon, Bloodstock Manager Jon Freyer was pretty pleased with Estriella’s debut.

“She was an outstanding yearling,” he said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “She was just an absolute crackerjack. We had two very good I Am Invincible fillies in that draft. We had her (Estriella) and the Omei Sword, and there was a sort of struck match between them.

“Our great client Kevin Payne bought her. He was thrilled to be able to buy her and she was a real standout. She was a glorious filly.”

The filly out of Omei Sword (High Chaparral {Ire}) fetched similar money to Estriella at $800,000, bought by Kia Ora Stud. Both fillies were ripe on pedigree and price.

Estriella’s dam, Madrigals, is co-owned by Arrowfield Stud and Jonathan Munz’s GSA Bloodstock, bought by the pair in 2017 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $425,000.

“We have a lot of time for Madrigals,” Freyer said. “She’s a full sister to Pierro and we bought her from Godolphin back in the day at Magic Millions. John O’Shea had trained her and he indicated that she’d had a bit of talent, and now she looks like making a mare.

“That was a super-impressive win by Estriella. It’s a difficult thing to do, what she did around Gosford, and I understand the jockey felt she had a lot to learn. It bodes well for the spring.”

Madrigals has had four foals in her short career at stud. Her first foal was by Deep Impact (Jpn) in 2018, and her second, by Snitzel, went to Hong Kong. She had a filly by Snitzel in 2021, which made $280,000 this year at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale when going to Bruce Perry Bloodstock (BAFNZ).

As to where she’ll go this spring, it’s early days.

“It’s a good question,” Freyer said. “We had her down to potentially go to Maurice, and I know it was only a Gosford maiden today, but do we think about going back to I Am Invincible with her? Possibly. Probably at this stage we’ll stick with Maurice.”

Freyer said the blood is good in this family and there is depth to it. He said that was obvious in Estriella’s victory at Gosford.

“She is a filly that had lovely scope to her, so I don’t think she’ll be physically limited to being a sheer speed filly, although she’s got a fair bit of dash about her,” Freyer said. “She might be a Flight S. filly in the spring.”

For Kevin Payne, it’s been a good run through the last fortnight. He is involved in the dual Derby winner Hitotsu, who was announced recently as Arrowfield’s newest stallion.

However, he also owns the 2-year-old filly Tutta La Vita (The Autumn Sun), who was a winner last week at Rosehill Gardens and who races in the same Estriella colours.

Orion The Hunter: am I a Star?

The Deep Field colt Orion The Hunter was the second of the smart, well-bred juveniles winners on Thursday. At Sale, he won the opening race for trainer Shane Nichols.

This chestnut colt was ninth on debut at Pakenham back in March, and the maturity has fitted him well as he led home La Petite Angele (Harry Angel {Ire}) and Sheamus Mills’ Written Tycoon filly Gumdrops.

The winning time was 1:01.12 for 1013 metres on a Heavy 9.

Orion The Hunter was ridden by Zac Spain, who posted a trio of winners across the card. But it was also a satisfying result for Nichols because this colt is the first foal from the trainer’s former charge, I Am A Star (NZ) (I Am Invincible).

Nichols sent I Am A Star out for 10 wins from 2016 through 2019. She was a brilliant racehorse, winning the G1 Myer Classic and no less than nine Group features in two years.

Her career was a massive return on her $40,000 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale price in 2015 when she was bought by James Harron from Broadwater Thoroughbreds.

I Am A Star was passed in at the 2019 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale with a $1.5 million reserve. As such, she was retained by Matthew Sandblom, who bred Orion The Hunter as her first foal.

The colt was offered by Newgate Farm at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, where he was bought by Shane Nichols in a stroke of providence for $800,000.

At Newgate, I Am A Star foaled a Fastnet Rock colt that made $400,000 at the Gold Coast in January when bought by Gai Waterhouse, Adrian Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds. The mare foaled an Extreme Choice filly last spring and she went back to that stallion again.