The $500,000 Inglis Nursery (1000m) at Randwick on Saturday has proven a launching for subsequent Golden Slipper winners She Will Reign and Mossfun as well as Blue Diamond winner Extreme Choice with this year’s winner Acrobat (2c Fastnet rock x Hips Don’t Lie, by Stravinsky) showing all the attributes of a future superstar.
Passed in at Inglis Easter shy of his $1million reserve, Fastnet Rock colt Acrobat was retained to race by Coolmore and partners and sent to the powerful Ciaron Maher and David Eustace stable.
He showed good ability in two recent trials and fitted with blinkers for his race day debut jumped out of the ground for James McDonald to power clear and win by more than two lengths in a slick 56.02 seconds.
“He floats across the ground, he has a beautiful mind and a good action, he’ll make a proper racehorse,” said James McDonald.
Ciaron Maher was thrilled with the performance.
“I was involved with his mother and she was a great racehorse, so for him to come to his first start and do that is very satisfying,” Maher said.
“Horses that race like him make their own luck, so it’s a huge advantage and I couldn’t be happier.
“Whether to go to the Inglis Millennium (worth $2million) or not, we have to have a think about it.
“The main thing is to get him into the Golden Slipper. The target was today and we will make a plan on the back of this win. I will sit down and have a chat with the Coolmore team.’’
Foaled and raised at Coolmore, Acrobat is the seventh winner from seven foals to race from Hips Don’t Lie, a former brilliant two year-old by Stravinsky that won the Group II STC Reisling Stakes.
All of her seven foals to race have been by Fastnet Rock and they include Group III winner Ennis Hill, Group I placed stakes-winner Lake Geneva and stakes-placed Memphis Rock with Acrobat her third stakes-winner.
Memphis Rock won at Flemington on Saturday to give the family a winning double!
Hips Don’t Lie had a change of pace in 2018, so has a yearling filly by I Am Invincible and was covered by Triple Crown hero Justify earlier this spring after missing to him last year.
Acrobat is the 165th stakes-winner for Coolmore’s champion sire Fastnet Rock and is his second juvenile stakes-winner of the new season joining Sneaky Five.
