Testa Rossa raised the bat on a half century of stakes winners at the weekend when the Gerry Harvey bred Good Master won the LR Lisbao Juvenile Stakes (1200m) in Macau.

The Australian-bred colt was sold for $120,000 at the 2012 Gold Coast Magic Millions.  He is trained by Gary Moore and has quickly established himself as one of the most promising three year-olds in Macau.

Good Master (3c Testa Rossa – Funicular by Jade Robbery) is a half-brother to stakes-performer Merryanna and their dam has been a frequent visitor to Vinery.  She has a Big Brown yearling colt, a Congrats weanling colt and was subsequently served again by Testa Rossa last year.

Saturday’s race was pretty much a two horse affair from the outset with Good Master parking right on the back of Win Smoothly soon after the start, and then hitting the line a bit too strongly for his stable-mate to win by a neck.

“Both horses went really well and gave their all,” assistant trainer Nicholas Moore said.  “We expected the extra distance to suit Good Master after he ran a close third to Win Smoothly last time.”

Good Master looks an ideal Macau Derby type for next season.

Testa Rossa’s 50 stakes winners range across distances from 1000m all the way up to 2500m.  His Group 1 winning offspring includes globe-trotting mare Ortensia who won major races in Dubai, England and, of course, here in Australia.

Testa Rossa, a six-times Group 1 winner himself, has sired 50 stakes winners and another 47 stakes placed horses.  Overall, he has been represented by 538 individual winners at an amazingly72% strike-rate.

A fixture on the Top 10 Australian sires’s premiership, Testa Rossa’s current season is shaping as one of his best yet with the real possibility of siring his first Golden Slipper winner via the reigning Magic Millions hero Unencumbered.

HALF-CENTURY FOR TESTA ROSSA
Good Master (outer) ranges up to defeat stablemate Win Smoothly