An classic double in the 2010 NZ and AJC Oaks is on the cards for Darley stallions Tiger Hill and Shamardal.
Posavina (3f Tiger Hill – Dance My Dance by Sadler’s Wells) staked her claim for the Kiwi classic with a convincing victory in the G3 Lowland Stakes (2100m) at Hastings on Saturday. She has firmed from $41 into $16 for the $300,000 New Zealand Oaks (G1) at Trentham on March 20.
Faint Perfume (3f Shamardal – Zona by Zabeel) won the G1 VRC Oaks in November and she resumed from a 17 week break to win the G2 Kewney Stakes at Flemington on Super Saturday. The Bart Cummings trained filly will attempt to complete the VRC Oaks – AJC Oaks double at Randwick on April 17.
Posavina is trained by Mark Walker at Matamata and he knows how to fit a filly for a classic campaign after training Princess Coup (Encosta De Lago) to win the Lowland and the NZ Oaks in 2007.
Her sire Tiger Hill (Danzig) was undefeated as a three year-old winning the G1 German 2000 Guineas and G1 Grosser Preis von Baden against older horses by four lengths. He was also placed in the G1 Arc de Triomphe and Timeform rated him among the Top 5 horses sired by Danehill in the northern hemisphere.
Tiger Hill jumped the blocks at stud in Europe with fully 15% of his winners developing into black-type winners. He stood at Gestt Schlenderhan in Germany but is now on Darley’s Dalham Hall roster at Newmarket.
It’s been a slower start down here with Posavina one of 13 winners to date from his initial southern hemisphere crop. That total includes Perth filly Yabigorse who was also runner-up in the Listed Challenge Stakes at Ascot last month. And leading WA owner-breeder Neville Duncan opened Tiger Hill’s second crop account when his homebred Bombora won on debut at Ascot in January.
Posavina is raced by Pencarrow Stud owner-breeders Peter and Phillip Vela. Her second dam Tis Juliet (Alydar) was a G1 winner in New York and third dam My Juliet (Gallant Romeo) won 24 races up to G2 level in North America.
The Vela brothers have seen their blue and white hooped colours carried by Group 1 winners Ethereal, Romanee Conti, Noble Heights, Star Dancer, Grand Echezeaux and Insouciant. Another Group 1 could be just a fortnight away.
Faint Perfume’s white, black and yellow silks are also right at home in Group 1 company. Owner Dato Tan Chin Nam and Bart Cummings have enjoyed a wonderful association over the years and Viewed did the colours proud with wins in the Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup.
Dato Tan Chin Nam catalogued Faint Perfume for the 2008 Inglis Easter yearling sale but she failed to make a $44,000 reserve.
Her sire Shamardal is a son of Giant’s Causeway and he was hardly flavour of the month when Darley sold his first southern yearlings at the 2008 majors. There are no fears now with 11 stakes performers among his 28 winners and he’s currently sitting third behind High Chaparral and Fastnet Rock on the second season sires’ premiership.
Faint Perfume is out of a Zabeel mare who retired a maiden but her second dam Danendri was trained by Bart to win the 1997 AJC Oaks for Dato Tan Chin Nam and Wynyarra Stud’s Ananda Krishnan.
Only top-class fillies sweep the VRC and AJC Oaks. In the last 30 years, the double has been the reserve of Research (1989), Grand Archway (1999) and Serenade Rose (2006).
Bart’s first champion Light Fingers completed the double way back in 1964-65 and he’s quietly confident Faint Perfume is up to the task. “She reminds me of Light Fingers and is better than we think,” Cummings said after his filly came from last to win the Kewney first-up. “She hasn’t grown much but she’s got a great constitution.”
Cummings has even floated the possibility of running Faint Perfume in the AJC Derby before the Oaks. Danendri was beaten a half-head by Ebony Grosve in the 1997 AJC Derby before backing up a week later in the Oaks.
The Derby form certainly held up. Following the first two home were Intergaze and Might And Power!