Despite not having a runner, it turned out to be a terrific weekend for Pheonix Thoroughbreds and their breeding operation.
The Dubai-based group chalked up another win as breeders while a couple of their leading broodmares came out of the busy few days of top Australian racing with significant pedigree updates.
A Very Fine Red got the ball rolling on Saturday as the Phoenix bred daughter of Deep Field won on debut. Trained by Mark Newnham, the Golden Slipper entrant shaped like a filly with some class to win her maiden plate at Hawkesbury. Its another sign of Phoenix Thoroughbreds increasing influence on the Australian bloodstock industry with A Very Fine Red’s connections perhaps hoping she’ll be able to follow in the hoofprints of other notable products of the operation’s breeding arm such as G1 winner Farnan and G2 scorer Letzbeglam.
Also providing a considerable boost for the team led by Amer Abdulaziz was the victory of Godolphin’s Anamoe in the G2 Todman Stakes. He is the half-brother to the Phoenix owned mare Amuletum, who herself is having a promising start to her career in the breeding sheds. She has produced a striking yearling filly by Juddmonte’s super sire Kingman, a horse likely to be raced by under the Phoenix banner, while her weanling filly by I Am Invincible is of equal quality. She is currently in foal to Pierata.
If Amuletum’s offspring are looking the part in the paddock, then Fragrance’s progeny are doing that both on and off the track. Another mare helping to raise Phoenix’s profile as leading breeders, she had a significant update inscribed on her page on Monday thanks to Angelic Scent’s excellent placed effort in the Morphettville Guineas. A winner on her second start, she stepped up on that performance to add some black-type to her page while looking like a filly destined to climb through the grades. Her dam is proving a hit and not just thanks to those performances on the track. Her latest yearling to go through the sales ring, a colt by So You Think, sold for $800,000.
