The babies of the champions have long held appeal with race goers.
And, today at Flemington, the youngest offspring of the great Black Caviar raced. It was her first start and she is a 2YO.
Her name is INVINCIBLE CAVIAR (I Am Invincible – Black Caviar) and she went into the race as the best bred runner not just in this, but all day, anywhere.
Or did she?
Also racing in this but totally overlooked because the baby of Black Caviar was in the field, and well backed, was ARGENTIA (Frankel – Princess Coup. She is a raw-boned thing with a winter coat, but is by a freak of nature from a multiple Gr 1 winner.
Both debuted in this 1100m sprint down the straight and, well so good are they bred that their pedigrees would stand up in any racing jurisdiction on earth.
Ok, so to the race. What we learned is that. Pedihgrees do matter because both of them look outstanding gallopers going forward. Today’s race was a cracker.
Invincible Caviar, who was well found by punters being a $4.50 chance, and who is trained by Peter Moody who also trained her champion mum, looks the best put together of all Black Caviar’s babies to date. She ran 3rd today after travelling beautifully in front from the gate.
She has great natural speed and under jockey Brian Higgins she looked for a few strides like her mum when asked to accelerate. She was coasting and kicked at the 300m, put two lengths on them and looked home. Only in the last 100m did she weaken. It was a tremendous debut performance and one of a horse who will develop into a Black Type galloper.
Argentia who cost $670,000 as a yearling, ran astonishingly, however. Steve Adams, representing the Anthony and Sam Freedman stable, who train her, said: “Always hope they can do that on race day but you don’t really expect them to win like that.
“So, when they do it is really exciting. She’s out of Princess Coup who won a Gr 1 over 2000m, so we will be looking at 1400m and 1600m races later on with this filly. We have always thought she had a lot of talent.”
She was ridden by Mark Zahra and he said excitedly, “It was very impressive. I’ve struggled to get a real feel for her because all her faster work has been on wet tracks, but on this dry track she showed her true colours. Wasn’t really sure what to expect today, but when she got into the clear she just took off.
“I’ve always had a good opinion of her but off that she looks pretty exciting.”
In the end she got home by about a length.
VIVIANE ( (Written Tycoon – Curtana) split the pair on the line and she was resuming from a spell.
She too looks a very nice type going forward.
But, to sum up the efforts, more than a pass mark for all three with the winner looking extremely smart.
