First stakes winner for Divine Prophet on Oaks Day

8 min read
The G3 Darley Ottawa S. was a celebratory result for Aquis Farm on Oaks Day, giving its Caulfield Guineas-winning stallion Divine Prophet his very first stakes winner.

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

The G3 Darley Ottawa S. was the first of the features on VRC Oaks Day, a sprint over 1000 metres for the juvenile fillies. It proved a busy field with 18 horses going to post, and the result went the way of See You In Heaven, who provided her sire, Aquis Farm’s Divine Prophet, with his very first stakes winner.

See You In Heaven is trained at Morphettville by Richard and Chantelle Jolly, and the filly was unraced until Thursday's meeting. She’d run a stylish trial at Balaklava last month, when she was third, and she went into the Ottawa S. as the second of two emergencies.

Richard and Chantelle Jolly

Ridden by Craig Williams, the filly popped out from barrier eight to be among the leading division down the straight course at Flemington. Strapparsi (Deep Field) set the early speed, with Nixie (Nicconi) close by alongside Foxy Gold (Shalaa {Ire}) and grey filly She’s Pretty Rich (Written Tycoon).

Out of the chute, See You In Heaven was in the middle of the track and cruising well, and Williams went at her at the 250-metre mark. She was pressed only by Bohemian Daisy (Hellbent) and then Satin Love (Snitzel) in the dying strides.

The final margin was See You In Heaven by 1.25l to second-placed Satin Love (both horses emergencies), with Bohemian Daisy 1.35l to third.

Ottawa form

The Ottawa S. was run on a Soft 5, and See You In Heaven clocked 59.15s for the 1000 metres, which was outside the standard time of 58.37s for a Soft track. However, that standard time is across all ages, so for a juvenile filly having her first start, it was a very respectable effort by way of the clock.

Craig Williams was full of polite praise for See You In Heaven post-race, as well as for team Jolly Racing.

Craig Williams with See You In Heaven after winning the G3 Ottawa S. | Image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

“The only reason I’m getting interviewed is because of their education, the assessment that they have of her and they knew they could travel her over here with confidence,” the jockey said. “She was really great. My job was made very easy. Everything that Richard told me this morning is exactly what happened.”

Richard Jolly told Williams that the filly had a tendency to pop up at the jump and also to kick other horses.

“The only thing I had to do pre-race was make sure she didn’t injure anyone,” Williams said. “She’s very professional with very good ability, and everyone could see that today.”

“She’s (See You In Heaven) very professional with very good ability, and everyone could see that today.” - Craig Williams

Previous form around the G3 Ottawa S. would suggest that See You In Heaven will go away for a while before a possible tilt at the Magic Millions Carnival in January or a campaign in the autumn.

Last year’s winner, the Grahame Begg filly Dosh (Rich Enuff), also won this race on debut, and then won the G3 Blue Diamond Preview (Fillies) at her next start, before running third in the Listed Cap D’Antibes S. and second to Savatoxl (Kuroshio) in the G2 Schillaci S.

Previous to Dosh, Aryaaf (Epaulette) also won the Ottawa on debut before running second to Mildred (Hinchinbrook) in the G3 Chairman’s S. in the autumn, an exact replica of the path tread by 2018 winner Bella Rose (Snitzel).

Gallery: Some of the previous winners of the Ottawa S. who won on debut

In fact, as of See You In Heaven’s victory, seven of the last eight winners of the Ottawa S. have been debutantes, and all were previous or subsequent stakes winners, so this has traditionally been a very good race for stakes fillies.

Shot in the arm

See You In Heaven was co-bred by Aquis Farm and G1G Racing And Breeding. She is the seventh foal from the Anabaa (USA) mare Shine On Anna, and she was twice through a sale ring before finding her way to Jolly Racing.

The filly was first sold at the 2020 Magic Millions National Weanling Sale, bought by Bruce Slade’s Kestrel Thoroughbreds from the Aquis draft for $27,000. She was one of six weanlings by Divine Prophet at that Sale, and the second-highest selling of the bunch.

She (See You In Heaven) was one of six weanlings by Divine Prophet at that Sale, and the second-highest selling of the bunch.

A few months later, See You In Heaven was placed into the draft of Alexia Fraser Bloodstock at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. She was bought by Richard and Chantelle Jolly out of Book 2 for $90,000.

“She was bred on the farm here by Aquis, and we sold her as a weanling,” said Jonathan Davies, Aquis’ Director of Sales. “She went back through Magic Millions after that, so hopefully we’ll see her in the big race here in January.

Gallery: See You In Heaven as a weanling and yearling

"She was a lovely, balanced filly with a very nice head when we sold her at the weanling stage, with a good hind-quarter and she was a very good mover.”

See You In Heaven is from the second crop of foals by Divine Prophet, and the stallion’s first stakes winner. To date, he’s had 19 winners, with such good horses as Fortunate Kiss, who was third in the G3 Chairman’s S. at Caulfield, and Bleriot, twice a winner in South Australia.

“It’s a big shot in the arm for a horse like him to get this win,” Davies said. “We’ve been waiting for a filly like this to come along for him because we’ve always been very confident in this stallion, and he’s been well-supported at stud.”

“It’s a big shot in the arm for a horse like him (Divine Prophet) to get this win. We’ve been waiting for a filly like this to come along for him..." - Jonathan Davies

Davies said Divine Prophet covered over 550 mares in his first four seasons at stud in New South Wales.

“There’s a lot of fire power still in the shed for this stallion,” he said. “As his horses mature and turn three, I think he’s going to get a lot of winners over a lot of different distances, from 1000 metres through to over 2000 metres and beyond. He’s a horse with a very big future.”

Divine result for Prophet

Divine Prophet is standing his fifth season at Aquis’ Canungra base this spring, slightly reduced on his previous fee of $22,000 (inc GST) to $16,500 (inc GST).

Divine Prophet | Standing at Aquis

It’s his first season in Queensland, and Davies said the horse has found a tidy niche locally.

“He’s found a lovely niche market up here, and he’s getting some really nice speed mares,” Davies said. “We saw in years gone by that Written Tycoon moved up to Queensland and covered many Queensland speed mares, and that was the crop that really put his name up in lights. That was the crop that produced multiple Group 1 winners including the Golden Slipper winner Capitalist.”

“He’s (Divine Prophet) found a lovely niche market up here (Queensland), and he’s getting some really nice speed mares." - Jonathan Davies

Queensland breeders have come for Divine Prophet this spring.

“I think there’ll be a lot of happy breeders sitting at home right now, with their mares already in foal or weanlings and yearlings come through by this horse,” Davies said. “They would have been cheering as loud as we were.”

Shining on Anna

The Ottawa S. was a double-edged result for Aquis Farm on Thursday because, as good as the stakes result was for Divine Prophet, the group had sold See You In Heaven’s dam, Shine On Anna, for a song last year at the Inglis Digital June (Late) Sale.

She went to Auravale Stud for as little as $6000.

Aquis had bought Shine On Anna for $33,000 from the draft of Yarraman Park Stud at the 2018 Inglis Sydney Broodmare and Weanling Sale. The mare was in foal to Rubick and, at the time, her four named foals had produced three winners.

Shine On Anna

Shine On Anna was bred by the Santic family’s Emily Krstina syndicate and sold as a yearling for $75,000 in 2007. Her buyer was Prime Thoroughbreds (from the draft of Edinglassie Stud), in whose colours she raced through a light career for David Hayes that notched two wins and two placings in five starts.

In 2010, she was a buy-back as a broodmare for the group, until she was put through the Yarraman draft in 2018 and sold to Aquis.

Since her stakes-winning daughter See You In Heaven, who was foaled in 2019, Shine On Anna has produced a Cliff’s Edge colt that was born on October 11.

See You In Heaven
Divine Prophet
Aquis Farm
Jonathan Davies
Ottawa S.