When buying yearlings “going back to the well”, is a time- honoured strategy for racing participants. As is sampling the blue sky potential of first season sires.
The opportunity to then combine the two can be a tempting one. Mixing a female family that’s been successful for you, with the speculative virtues of an unknown stallion, opens the door to hopefully something special.
There’s definitely a bit of both in the PINATUBO x BOURBON STREET 2yo colt (pictured). The distaff side contains a dozen stakes winners and has also spawned our very good stakes placed mare OCEAN TREATY.
PINATUBO, unbeaten in half a dozen blazing juvenile runs, was a classy racehorse winning 7 of his 10 starts (3 at GROUP 1) from 1200-1400m. His sole defeats resulted in a trio of placings over 1600m in G1 company.
Yet 27 of his 62 European winners have been successful from 1600-2600m, including a quartet of stakes winners!
How then, did his first two Australian runners reveal such brilliance in Tuesday’s Maribyrnong Plate over 1000m?
TALES OF TIME was a close 2nd (actually protested against the winner) and the other colt, favourite CARNEVALE led and ran 4th. Does this mean his Australian conceived stock, like their father, will be sharper than their European relatives? Or, if they’re capable of revealing precocious speed, will they be even more effective out to a mile and beyond as they mature?
A fascinating question but the BOURBON STREET colt has impressed from the get-go, prompting trainer Matt Hoysted to put some of his friends into the ownership. You can see why from the video update below…