Girl Gone Rockin’ signed off an excellent week for champion sire Redoute’s Choice with a resolute victory in the $300,000 VRC Matriarch S. 2000m G2 on the final day of Cup Week at Flemington.
The 5YO mare’s late charge at the gallant Queenstown (by Redoute’s Choice’s son Stratum) made for a heart-stopping finish that only the camera could sort out, with Girl Gone Rockin’ getting the nod by the slimmest of margins for her owners Rosemont Stud & Nigel Austin and trainer Michael, Wayne & John Hawkes.
Girl Gone Rockin’ is the third black type winner during Cup Week for Redoute’s Choice following the successes of Dystopia (VRC Begonia Belle S. G3) and Lankan Rupee (VRC Century S. LR) on Oaks Day, and takes his lifetime total of stakeswinners to 108.
It was the fourth and easily the best win of Girl Gone Rockin’s 14-start career and gives a major boost to her value as a future broodmare.
Girl Gone Rockin’ (ex Sorrento by Just A Dancer) was bred by John & Deborah Camilleri’s Fairway Thoroughbreds and purchased by Rosemont Stud for $NZ380,000 from the Curraghmore Stud draft at the 2010 New Zealand Premier Sale.
Girl Gone Rockin’ is from a distinguished New Zealand female family that has regularly left top-class performers over the past 30 years. Her dam Sorrento, a three-quarter sister to multiple Group winner Stargazer & stakeswinner Spangles, won twice in Australian Group company after a good 3YO season in New Zealand. Her first four foals were all winners, including Group 1-placed Group 3 winner Syreon (by Flying Spur), and the mare Sorren Tessa, presciently bought along with Sorrento herself by Rosemont Stud earlier this year.
Sons of Redoute’s Choice have also been prominent among spring stakes results and Mutawaajid provided a final flourish on Stakes Day courtesy of 2YO gelding Boomwaa who bolted in by 3 lengths in the VRC Maribyrnong Plate G3 for Derby-winning trainer Robbie Laing.
Mutawaajid, a dual Group 2-winning sprinter, is the 12th stakes-siring son of Redoute’s Choice.
