Fastnet Rock hit top gear for the spring carnival when his brilliant colt Smart Missile won the G3 Run to the Rose at Rosehill on Saturday.

Smart Missile (3c Fastnet Rock – Comical Smile by Comic Strip) was spotting flying filly Karuta Queen 10 lengths in the straight before unleashing a barnstorming finish.  He picked up the leaders and had a neck to spare from fellow Fastnet Rock colt Foxwedge on the line.  

“He’s just an amazing animal,” winning trainer Anthony Cummings said.  “I had given up at the furlong but he’s just an extraordinary horse.  Only a very short list of horses can do that.”

Even before he raced, Cummings predicted Smart Missile could be the best horse he had ever trained.  The colt began living up to those expectations with a debut victory in the Listed Breeders’ Plate at Randwick last season.

He inflicted the only defeat to date on Sepoy in the G2 Todman Stakes but was a shock late scratching at the barrier before the Golden Slipper.

A homebred for Eduardo Cojuangco’s Gooree Stud, Smart Missile is a half-brother to stakes-winner Kiss From a Rose.  His dam Comical Smile is a half-sister to G1 winner Northern Meteor.

Winning jockey Glen Boss claimed racing has a new superstar after dismounting from Smart Missile.  “The best three-year-old I ever rode was Fastnet Rock and this bloke is probably a bit better than him as he has more scope.  I can’t wait until he gets to a mile.”