Sepoy is unlikely to be rushed onto the international racing stage despite confirming his dominance of Australian juvenile racing with his Golden Slipper triumph.
Talk that Sepoy would join other Australian-bred stars in one of Darley’s overseas stables was quickly downplayed after Saturday’s win and the colt is expected to race on in Australia through his three-year-old term at least.
In a watershed moment for global racing and breeding superpower Darley, Sepoy landed the world’s richest two-year-old prize in emphatic style.
Not even the drama surrounding the scratching of Smart Missile, the only horse to have beaten Sepoy, could diminish the result for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his band of thoroughbred advisors.
“Winning a Golden Slipper means everything to Darley,” Darley Australia’s managing director Henry Plumptre said.
“Sepoy is a homebred horse. He’s by a Darley stallion out of a Darley mare.
“He’s been through all our main racing stables so it is an all-inclusive win for us. It’s fantastic.”
Plumptre said Sheikh Mohammed, whose thoroughbred team also includes a string of horses competing under the famous Godolphin banner, understood how important the Golden Slipper was to Australian racing.
“It’s the biggest two-year-old race he has won,” Plumptre said.
“He is well aware of the significance of the race.
“That’s why (Darley international bloodstock manager) John Ferguson is here today.”
Sepoy was already assured of his place on the Darley stallion roster on the back of his Blue Diamond Stakes win.
As a Golden Slipper winner, expectations at stud will be much higher but Plumptre says there is no need to be “talking telephone” numbers when it comes to putting a value on the colt.
“Saturday’s win underpins the value we put on him after he won the Blue Diamond,” he said.
“People can get carried away with figures but now he’s a Blue Diamond and Golden Slipper winner so he is obviously a very valuable colt.”
Sepoy is a son of Elusive Quality, a United States stallion who last shuttled to Australia in 2008.
Elusive Quality is the sire of Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Smarty Jones and Breeders’ Cup Classic hero Raven’s Pass.
But until Sepoy’s emergence he has been a disappointment in the eyes of Australian breeders.
His only other Australia Group One winner so far has been Camarilla.
Camarilla won the 2007 AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes – the second leg of Sydney’s autumn juvenile triple crown.
Sepoy will be absent from this week’s renewal at Randwick with trainer Peter Snowden re-affirming on Sunday his plan to spell the colt ahead of a spring campaign.
AAP TURF
