Blue Gum Farm can lodge a last-minute update for its Lonhro – Screen Legend colt at the Inglis Melbourne Premier yearling sale starting on Sunday, March 2.

Catalogued as Lot 530 at Oaklands Junction, the colt is from a half-sister to Samraat who will continue his Kentucky Derby campaign in the $500,000 Gotham Stakes on Saturday, March 1.

Samraat launched this year’s Run for the Roses with a determined victory in the G3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on February 1.  He was coming off a 16 length romp in the Damon Runyon Stakes in December.

His older half-sister Screen Legend was a juvenile winner over 1600m in USA.  The Tiznow mare was also G3 placed in the Lassie Stakes at Arlington.

Blue Gum’s Lonhro colt was her first foal after arriving in Australia in February 2011.

Samraat (3c Noble Causeway – Little Indian Girl by Indian Charlie) is unbeaten in four starts after winning a duel with Uncle Sigh in the Withers Stakes.  The pair separated themselves from the rest of the field by as much as seven lengths before Samraat got the upper hand to score by a length.

“Hats off to both horses.  They ran a huge, huge race today,” trainer Rick Violette declared.  “And I think they will show up later in the year.”

Violette had been training Samraat in Florida and flew the colt into New York three days before the Withers.  “He can come back for the Gotham on March 1 or we might wait until the Wood Memorial on March 29.  There are a lot of options leading into the Kentucky Derby.”

Samraat, who is a homebred for My Meadowview Farm owner Len Riggio, has earned 10 points on the qualifying leader-board for the Kentucky Derby on May 3.

Riggio bought his dam Little Indian Girl for $150,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November Sale.  Besides Screen Legend and Samraat she has also foaled Japanese stakes performer Original Fate (Grand Slam).

Blue Gum has a 21 strong consignment for the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale including 6 second-crop yearlings by its resident sire Turffontein.

Turffontein (Johannesburg) was a Group 1 winner of the MVRC William Reid Stakes and MRC Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes.  The best of his babies seen out so far this season has been the Tony Vasil-trained filly Fontein Ruby.  She was runner-up on debut at Caulfield on Boxing Day and holds a nomination for the LR Inglis Premier at Mornington on Wednesday, February 12.

– Karl Patterson

SAMRAAT
Unbeaten colt claims the G3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct