The Inglis Millennium winner Fireball (Snitzel) cemented himself as a future stallion with a tenacious victory in today’s G1 Champagne Stakes at Randwick.
Fireball is arguably the most versatile juvenile of his crop – he won a pre-Christmas race over 1100m, won the $2m Inglis Millennium in February and has contested all three legs of the 2YO Triple Crown, culminating with today’s Champagne victory over 1600m.
The James Harron Bloodstock Colt Partnership teamed up with Tony Fung Colts to purchase the Chris Waller-trained Fireball for $460,000 at last year’s Easter Yearling Sale, from the Yarraman Park Stud draft.
Bred by Michael O’Keeffe, Fireball (pictured) has now won three of his six career starts and earned $2,030,000 in prizemoney.
Harron described today’s victory as “really special’’.
“He dug so deep there at the end, I’m really proud of the horse,’’ Harron said.
“He’s such a versatile horse and in today’s landscape, I think that’s what people want as there’s so many races for these horses and to win from 1100m to a mile at two, it just opens up so many possibilities going forward.
“He was always a gorgeous colt at the Easter Sale, a lovely big scopey son of Snitzel, he’s a horse we just had to have.
“It was our first year teaming up with TFI and to get a G1 winner in that first year of the partnership is super special, it means an awful lot, we’re thrilled to get the win today.
“Obviously Snitzel unfortunately is not with us anymore but he’s left an incredible mark in the industry and continues to do so every single week.
“To have a son like him waiting in the wings is exactly what we’re trying to do, we’re targeting sons of Snitzel to be in this position and it’s nice when a plan comes off because it’s a hard game to make plans come off.’’
Winning trainer Waller added: “Full credit to the horse because he’s been able to deal with [a long preparation]. As I said to the owners before the race, he’s coping so well, you wouldn’t know he’s deep into a prep, each run has had so much merit and not a lot of luck, so he deserved that today.”
Fireball becomes the 119th G1-winning Inglis graduate since 2018.
He is also the third Australian 2YO G1-winning colt to be produced from Inglis sales over the past two seasons.