Waltz On By was bred to be a Thousand Guineas winner and she remains on track to be targeted towards that race following victory at Sandown on Wednesday.
The daughter of I Am Invincible put a number of luckless runs behind her to register a dominant 1-1/2-length maiden win in the $55,000 50-Year Life Member Brian Reed BM64 3YO Handicap (1300m).
Peter Moody will now give her the chance to emulate not only her dam, but also her granddam in the $1 million Thousand Guineas at Caulfield on October 12.
“Pete actually just made the comment post-race that he doesn’t think he’s had a horse this good that hasn’t won a maiden for this long, so it feels like it’s been a long time coming,” Moody’s assistant trainer Katherine Coleman said post-race.
“She’s a horse that we’ve got a really good opinion of and it’s nice to get this maiden out of the way and hopefully go on to bigger and better things.”
Waltz On By is out of Stay With Me, a daughter of Street Cry who in 2015 edition of Victoria’s only fillies’ 1600m Group 1.
Stay With Me’s Guineas win came nine years after her mother, champion filly Miss Finland, won the Thousand Guineas.
It was one of five Group 1 wins for Miss Finland, a daughter of Redoute’s Choice and Forest Pearl (Woodman), who is most famous for winning a Golden Slipper but stretched her brilliance out to the 2500m of the VRC Oaks and also beat the boys in an Australian Guineas.
Stay With Me is by far the best of Miss Finland’s progeny although all but one of the five she has had to race are winners.
Waltz On By is the second foal from Stay With Me, following Always On My Mind, a four-year-old mare by Deep Impact who won on debut at Pakenham but has not started since finished down the track in the G3 Auraria Stakes (1800m) in April this year.
Miss Finland and Stay With Me, who were both trained out of Lindsay Park, carried the Arrowfield Stud colours, which are also sported by Waltz On By.
