Sisters are doing it for themselves

Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan

It was a good day at Hawkesbury on Wednesday for Gerry Harvey, with the blue-lined 2-year-old filly De An Andretti, a full sister to three-time Group-winning Libertini, claiming the fillies’ Maiden Plate at her debut outing.

Trained at Randwick by master horseman Ron Quinton, De An Andretti had only a trial behind her heading into the Hawkesbury event, and she jumped awkwardly for jockey Andrew Adkins before settling towards the back.

Your Too Good (Your Song) showed most of the running before the straight and, when the field fanned for home, Harvey’s filly was still back and widest on the track. However, she ran strongly down the middle with Adkins’s good riding, and was an impressive winner by 0.33l to Your Too Good, with Hoover Lucy (No Nay Never {USA}) further back for third.

“It wasn’t good watching,” Quinton said post-race, marvelling at how De An Andretti had found her legs in the final furlong.

“It was an outstanding effort, I thought,” the trainer added. “She came out very awkward from the gate, which she’s never done before, but it tells us she’s a pretty good filly on the way up.”

Quinton said De An Andretti would head to the paddock now, but added that she’ll be a very smart 3-year-old next season.

“She’s beautifully bred, and she’s a monster of a filly for a 2-year-old,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to take care of, that she's so big on those legs. But when you’ve got one in the stable like that, you don’t mind coming in on a morning, I can tell you.”

A man of his word

Quinton and Harvey go back a long way, with the trainer handling a few of Harvey’s good colts in the past.

“I won a couple of good races with Gerry’s colts, and the next minute he was selling them to Hong Kong,” Quinton said. “This is going back a fair way, and so I said to Gerry that every time he’d give me a nice horse, he’d sell it from me. Gerry said he’d have to start giving me fillies.”

About three or four months ago, the Baramul studmaster visited Quinton’s yard and asked of the fillies. None were by I Am Invincible, and Harvey decided upon sending one Quinton’s way.

“Gerry has always been a bloke that if he says something, he does it,” the trainer said. “And so, about a month later, this thing (De An Andretti) turned up.”

Quinton didn’t see the filly before she showed up on the truck, but he was impressed when he did. He said she was a massive horse, and that is the reason why he’s gone softly with her through only one trial before Wednesday’s race, and no ambitions to hit-up the juvenile stakes races.

“There’s nothing wrong with her, but being so big I’ve been really careful with her,” Quinton said. “I’ve been excited about this filly for quite some time now, because she has shown me things that decent ones do for you. You battle away with some of these other horses, but if they haven’t got the ability you can’t make them go.”

The trainer added that the timing was right to put De An Andretti in the paddock, but Quinton won’t relax when she’s gone.

“I’ll be worried about her more when she’s out,” he said. “Worried that she’ll run through a bloody fence.”

Two for two with Adkins

De An Andretti’s Hawkesbury win provided jockey Andrew Adkins with his second victory since returning to competitive riding after serious injury last year, and both wins have come aboard Quinton horses.

“That’s pleasing for us,” the trainer said. “Andy was on her today because he’s helped me with the jump-outs and that sort of thing in the mornings, so he deserved to be there.”

Adkins said De An Andretti was a classy girl to overcome her barrier mishap, possibly caused, the trainer said, by inexperience with an all-elastic girth.

“She half-bucked out of the gates and ran a few off the track,” Adkins said. “But she was able to set herself into a nice rhythm after that and follow the fence until the corner. As soon as she straightened up she felt like the winner, and she savaged the line like I thought she would.”

Big shoes

As you’d expect from a filly with such a pedigree, De An Andretti was an unsold yearling, a homebred retained by Harvey at Baramul Stud.

The filly is the fifth foal from Harvey’s broodmare Aloha (Encosta De Lago), who herself was a winner of the 2011 G1 Coolmore Classic in Harvey’s blue and white silks, as well as two Listed races and over $800,000 in prizemoney.

Her first two foals were consigned for sale, fetching $250,000 and $625,000 respectively, before Harvey retained Libertini and subsequent foals The Motley Fool (Sebring) and De An Andretti.

Aloha has a yearling colt called Hawaii Five Oh (I Am Invincible), owned in partnership between Harvey and John Singleton’s Strawberry Hill Stud (as is the case with Libertini), and the mare is in foal to I Am Invincible once again.

In The Mood for more

In the wake of De An Andretti at Hawkesbury, it proved a good afternoon for Yarraman Park’s I Am Invincible with 2-year-old filly I Am In The Mood winning Race 3 at Bendigo.

Trained at Flemington by Danny O’Brien, I Am In The Mood was also debuting for the first time, and she won handily for jockey Craig Williams by 0.75l to Cardigan Queen (Sebring) and Glamour And Glory (Star Turn).

Bred at Widden Stud and passed in shy of her $500,000 reserve at last year's COVID-impacted Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, the filly is the third foal from Dubawi (Ire) mare Intimate Moment (NZ), who won the 2014 G3 Epona S. in her four-time winning career with Ron Quinton, and later Chris Waller.

Intimate Moment’s chestnut colt by Snitzel sold at last week’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale. Lot 350 was purchased from the Widden draft by O’Brien Thoroughbreds for $330,000, perhaps an indication the trainer knew I Am In The Mood has a fair share of ability.

Harron strikes

Meanwhile, the 2-year-old colts had their moment in the sun on Wednesday afternoon with Race 1 at Hawkesbury, the HRC Trainers’ Day Maiden Plate. Over 1100 metres, it was Aslav (Vancouver) who scored on his maiden outing in the James Harron silks.

Purchased by the prolific bloodstock agent at the 2020 Inglis Ready2Race Sale for $260,000, Aslav was an $80,000 yearling from Cornerstone Stud at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale, then bought by JCS Racing.

The colt is trained at Rosehill by Chris Waller, and could be pointed at a winter campaign in Queensland. He is the second winner from the imported mare Anatole (USA) (Quiet American {USA}), a half-sister to impressive Group winners Man From Wicklow (USA) (Turkoman {USA}) and Wild Heart Dancing (USA) (Farma Way {USA}).

Anatole herself was sold by Coolmore at the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, snapped up by Cornerstone Stud for $50,000.