\n\t\t\t\t\tBy Lydia Symonds\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Listen<\/p>\n
The void Wootton Bassett\u2019s (Iffraaj) untimely death leaves in the global industry was drawn into stark focus on Friday when the stallion scored his first southern hemisphere-bred stakes winner courtesy of West Of Swindon\u2019s victory in the Stutt Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) at The Valley.<\/p>\n
The global industry was rocked on Tuesday when Coolmore\u2019s star recruit was euthanised while on shuttle duty in the Hunter Valley after the horse suffered from \u201cacute pneumonia which deteriorated rapidly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wootton Bassett\u2019s impact in Australia has been a slow burner with the stallion siring ten winners in his first term, but was unlucky not to gain Group 1 laurels when his star son, Wodeton, finished a narrow second in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), while one of his other sons, State Visit, also finished runner-up in the highest company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite being winless before Friday, West Of Swindon was also stakes-placed as a juvenile, finishing second in the Silver Slipper Stakes (Gr 2, 1100m) last February when trained by Team Hawkes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Switched to Ciaron Maher by his owner\/breeders Qatar Racing this season, the colt placed again at stakes level in Listed company on his second start this preparation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ridden by Ben Melham and trained by Ciaron Maher, West Of Swindon unleashed a potent turn of foot to beat Romantic Encounter (Ghaiyyath) by 0.4 lengths with Highvol (Microphone) another 2.3 lengths back to Hillier (Zoustar).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maher believed the colt would be hard to beat on Friday and said he would now bid for Group 1 glory in the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) on October 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very confident, he\u2019s a high quality colt and he\u2019s beautifully bred. He might have been a maiden going into tonight, but I can\u2019t think of a better way to break that maiden,\u201d the trainer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnwards to the Guineas [Caulfield Group 1] now and I can\u2019t thank my team enough as they\u2019ve done\u00a0 a great job with him and Ben Melham gave him a beautiful ride and took the race by the horns, made every post a winner and backed the horse, so fair play to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melham added: \u201cHe\u2019s a pretty well-credentialed horse. He\u2019s been running in some better races in Sydney, around the best three-year-olds in Australia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s strong at the mile, he\u2019s got a great attitude, he\u2019s got a good will to win for a colt, and he\u2019s got a good action, so that\u2019ll hold him in good stead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Matt Laurie\u2019s star colt Vinrock (I Am Invincible) suffered the second defeat of his career when he finished fifth in the Group 2, having been sent off the $1.65 favourite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His trainer Matt Laurie described the way the race panned out as a \u2018disaster\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was meant to be forward and kind of blundered the start. It was pretty much a disaster. We will put a line through it and hopefully we can redeem ourselves in a couple of weeks,\u201d Laurie said.<\/p>\n
The colt\u2019s rider Mark Zahra assessed the overall performance of Vinrock as \u201cokay\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zahra told RV stewards that it was his stated intention to lead or settle outside the leader but Vinrock dropped his head as the start was affected, losing ground.<\/p>\n
He then said Vinrock over-raced and came close to clipping the heels of Bingi.<\/p>\n
Zahra stated that Vinrock was under pressure from the 400m and he was reluctant to take him wide on the turn, instead he tried to improve on the inside of Bingi.<\/p>\n
He said he was satisfied with the way Vinrock finished the race off.<\/p>\n
Zahra told RV stewards that Vinrock raced at his best when he could settle closer to the lead.<\/p>\n
Stewards later noted Vinrock was lame in the off foreleg.<\/p>\n
Purchased by his former trainers for $350,000 at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling from the Widden Stud draft, West Of Swindon is out of the winning Starcraft (Soviet Star), a half-sister Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Fawkner (Reset) and Tanby (Galileo), whose 11 wins were headed by two Group 2s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wootton Bassett\u2019s global stakes winner now stands at 72 and they are headed by 16 Group 1 winners.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lydia Symonds Listen The void Wootton Bassett\u2019s (Iffraaj) untimely death leaves in the global industry was drawn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-162715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}