Date posted June 18, 2010 | Posted by Michele Cullen | Filed under
Premium Updates,
Racing and Breeding,
Red Giant,
ShamardalIrish trainer Dermot Weld has unearthed another contender for this year’s historic 150th Emirates Melbourne Cup following last night’s win of Rite Of Passage in the prestigious Group I Ascot Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, UK.
“I suppose we’ll have to take him to Melbourne now,” Weld said immediately after the six-year-old delivered his first success in England’s most famous staying race.
Weld’s previous best performances in the Ascot Gold Cup were placings with Vintage Crop in 1994 - the year after his Melbourne Cup success - and in 2005 with Vinnie Roe, the year after his second placing in the Melbourne Cup behind Makybe Diva.
Weld is the only Irish trainer to have won the Melbourne Cup, landing the prize for a second time with Media Puzzle in 2002 which is now the subject of the movie The Cup that is being filmed around Melbourne at present.
English bookmaker Paddy Power has already installed Rite Of Passage (ex Dahlia’s Krissy by Kris S) as a 10/1 chance for this year’s Melbourne Cup for which entries close on 3 August.
On a track rated good to firm, Rite Of Passage, ridden a perfect race by stable rider Pat Smullen, ran a course record 4:16.92 for the 4000 metre journey.
Starting at the odds of 20/1, he ran down Aidan O’Brien’s Age Of Aquarius (Galileo ex Clara Bow by Top Ville) over the final 200 metres to win by a neck with 2007 Melbourne Cup runner-up Purple Moon (Galileo ex Vanishing Prairie by Alysheba) six lengths away in third.
Rite Of Passage, a son of Giant’s Causeway, was purchased by Weld for 20,000 guineas as a yearling at the 2005 Tattersalls October (part 1) sale will follow the same route to the Melbourne Cup as Vintage Crop and Vinnie Roe, running in the Irish St Leger in September.
Giant’s Causeway is proving to be a sire of sires and three of his sons feature on the STALLIONS website.
Darley’s Shamardal (ex Helsinki by Machiavellian) is making his presence felt in Australia and on the European racing scene and returns this spring to Darley’s Kelvinside property at a fee of $66,000 (inc gst), Giacosa (ex Voltage by Whiskey Road) stands in Victoria at a fee of $5,500 (inc gst) and Red Giant (ex Beyond the Sun by Kingmambo) is shuttling from his Three Chimney’s base in Kentucky this spring to New Zealand and will stand at Westbury Stud for a fee of $11,000 (plus gst).
