Perseverance ‘paramount’ in Sires Stakes Classique

Thursday night’s (Sep. 22) Canterbury Spa & Pool Sires Stakes Trotting Classique has attracted a worthy field of ten quality trotting fillies for the Group Three harness racing feature to be held at Addington Raceway.

The fourth running of the race has seen the stake more than doubled to $40,000 and the promotion from Listed status to Group Three, a move in line with current efforts to give trotting breeders and their female progeny better opportunities against their own sex.

The pedigrees of the 10 runners make for impressive reading with the likes of Hidden Talent (Bacardi Lindy) a full sister to the enigmatic Dark Horse, Majestic Love (Majestic Son) a full sister to the short course star, Majestic Man, but none read quite as impressively as the All Star’s stable first starter, Paramount Empress (Muscle Hill).

She is out of the Paramount Queen, a Group Three winning daughter of Love You who was also twice Group One placed in the two and three-year-old Ruby’s at the Harness Jewels. Her full brother Paramount King and half-brother Paramount Gee Gee (Pegasus Spur) were both age group stars also having won Group Ones as two-year-olds with the latter being a five-time group one winner with $500,000 in stakes to boot.

Paramount Queen also has a half-sister in Paramount Faith who is the dam of current Open Class star, Muscle Mountain, highlighting a family that is littered with trotting royalty via the deeds of the super-producing dam and grand dam, Paramount Star (Sundon).

Brian West, co-breeder of Paramount Empress and tonight’s $2.70 favourite, details a colourful journey to the races for the blue-blood trotting filly having persevered in the face of adversity.

“She was initially entered for the Yearling Sales but had what they call a rotated leg where it starts turning out from the shoulder. It was quite severe and if I showed a photograph of her as a young horse, you would be saying, wow, she couldn’t be a racehorse,” said West.

“It was a long process to get the foot to come round, but we made some really good progress heading towards the sales. We had two separate inquiries from North America where they wanted photos and videos of her due to her being a January foal. To counter anything negative I took some videos of her on the jogging machine and when she trotted, she looked very square in her gait, but it was the opposite when she walked or stood for you.

“Leading into the sale, New Zealand Bloodstock wasn’t happy about her heading into the ring in case it came back on them later with her confirmation. We ended up pulling her out very late, about a week before the sales, but there were five individual vet inspections trying to get them to allow us to sell the horse. The final decision was made at our yearling parade when Becky Sertorius said she couldn’t sign off on her which NZB agreed with, which was fine, because we were happy to keep her as a broodmare,” he said.

Given her pedigree and the fact that Paramount Empress had shown she was capable of trotting well at some speed, West and his co-owner Graeme Gimblett wanted to give her a chance at being a racehorse before sending her to join the broodmare band.

Like so many of her siblings, she impressed immediately and left a big impression with the horseman responsible for breaking in the likes of Bolt For Brilliance and Temporale.

“Kerry O’Reilly broke her in and took her right through to the first couple of workouts before giving her the Mark Purdon stamp as a filly with a big motor, noting she was powerful and strong for her age.

“She was ready to start as a two-year-old but in a couple of private workouts at the All-Star’s place, she just put the brakes on and didn’t want to run so we considered that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to push on and race her in case she did it there. Mark suggested we give her six months out and try her again, and this is where we are now,” he said.

It has been a slow and deliberate education for Paramount Empress with eight public appearances at trial and workouts resulting in six wins and two-second placings.

She is unbeaten in her three trials since the six-month spell as a two-year-old and has looked like a filly capable of mixing it with the elite performers of her age group as she built towards tonight’s Group Three feature.

PARAMOUNT EMPRESS TRIAL REPLAY

“She has always been a well-muscled and strong filly. She certainly has inherited the high speed and the great gait, and that comes from her grandmother Paramount Star,” said West.

“Paramount Star had the most amazing gait, a powerful gait like the European trotters I saw when I spent time over in France. When Paramount Queen won the Hambletonian, Robert Dunn stopped me and said what a magnificent gait she had, assuming it had come from her own sire in Love You. It wouldn’t have hurt her, but ‘Star’ had a huge role in passing on her gait and speed and it’s evident in how she has bred on at stud.

“Star’ didn’t get in foal and is retired on the farm for a life of luxury and is in the orchard where she gets about three tonne of fruit and will be here for life,” he laughed.

West won’t be on track for tonight’s assignment but is confident of a forward showing noting she will be improved for the experience having never publicly taken on a field of more than four trotters.

She is drawn handily in barrier four by virtue of the preferential barrier draw conditions and with her more experienced rivals outside her will have to take advantage of that if she is to come out victorious in her race debut.

The Nathan Williamson-trained Hidden Talent has been impressive winning two from two and has a bit of the x factor and raw ability her full sister Dark Horse showed at the same age having galloped on debut and made a huge recovery to win, something Dark Horse did on more than one occasion.

The Williamson family are no strangers to trotting features in this country, but having four runners, each trained individually by brothers Nathan, Brad, Matty, and their father Phil, may well be a family first.

Matty lines up the race-hardened Minnie Magoogan, Brad lines up Mixed Faith and Phil takes the last start winner, Majestic Love who is fresh up tonight from a lengthy spell.

While Paramount Empress might be the first foal of her dam to get to the races in New Zealand, her two-year-old half-brother, Paramount Legend (Father Patrick) has the distinction of being the only Southern Hemisphere-bred trotter to have contested the rich Peter Haughton Memorial in New Jersey, America.

He was sold as a yearling after showing early promise and by virtue of his January 1^st foal date, was sent to North America to ply his trade where he took advantage of his maturity to race with distinction against the best juveniles in the United States.

All three of the foals from Paramount Queen have been bred to North American time, something West has done for some time where his commercial interests as a breeder are always looking for opportunities to broaden possible sales.

“We have done that for at least two decades. PGGW used to have a Northern Hemisphere timed race which gave you some incentive and we have bred around four to six mares every year with the North American market specifically in mind. The birthdate change has facilitated that even further and we have attracted some real interest from up that way as a result.

“We have a filly by Father Patrick who also incidentally had a slightly rotated leg and if I showed you the photo as a foal at 24 hours old, you wouldn’t have given her much chance of being a racehorse. But she has developed nicely and at this point, she is in the sale next year, but we may pull her out. Only because Graeme and I are getting past our use-by date, and it would be nice to keep her as well but at this point, she is entered for sale,” he said.

With growing interests in breeding and racing trotters, West is excited to see the development of opportunities for fillies to compete against their own sex.

“It’s so overdue and it’s so good to see it happening in the programs going forward, and we just have to hope they get supported going forward,” he said.

For complete race fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink