Darley Storm Cat Dynasty Shuttlers Enjoy Juvenile Success
15-02-2012
TWO sires from the Storm Cat male line who have been shuttled by Darley enjoyed juvenile success at the weekend.The winners were Looking Ahead, a 2.3 lengths victor at Perth’s Ascot by Consolidator, a visitor to Darley’s Northwood stud in Victoria in 2006 and 2008, and Lil Red Corvette, a filly successful at Moonee Valley on Friday night in the first Australian crop of Henny Hughes.
Out to Darley’s Hunter Valley headquarters in each of the last four seasons, Henny Hughes is a leading American 2-year-old and world champion sprinter by the Storm Cat sire Hennessy, a former Coolmore dual hemisphere sire. Now in his third year of representation in America, Henny Hughes supplied 20 2-year-old winners in his first year, 2010, and 24 last year, one in which he also had 38 first crop 3-year-old winners. When his daughter Lil Red Corvette, a product of a Testa Rossa mare, won at Moonee Valley she nosed out a filly by another Darley sire, the Danehill champion Australian sprinter Exceed and Excel.
Consolidator, the sire of the Perth winner Looking Ahead, the only runner so far from his second visit, was not as good on the track as Henny Hughes but, in the Darley tradition of only the best will do, was a high class performer in America. His ten starts included three wins 6 fur – 8.5 fur., among them the Keeneland Breeders’ Futurity-Gr.1 (2yo) and Santa Anita San Felipe Stakes-Gr.2 (3yo) – by 6.5 lengths and in stakes record time.
At two he also showed he was one of the best of his generation with a neck second in the Churchill Downs Kentucky Breeders’ Cup-Gr.3 and a third in the Saratoga Sanford Stakes-Gr.2 and fourths in the American Breeders’ Cup Juvenile-Gr.1 and Saratoga Hopeful Stakes-Gr.1. He is by Storm Cat and from Good Example, a Group 3 winning daughter of the Blushing Groom first class miler and quality sire Crystal Glitters and Nivona, a mare by Nodouble, two times American turf champion and once their champion sire.
The sire of the now deceased import Semipalatinsk, a very good sire at the McAlpine’s Eureka stud near Toowoomba, Nodouble was by Noholme, an exported Australian Horse of the Year brother to Todman. Both were bred for Stanley Wootton at the Baramul stud, Widden Valley using Star Kingdom and Oceana, one of the mares of modern fashion he sent out from England.
From his use in Australia in 2006, Consolidator has had a dozen first crop winners, now four, from a small number of runners. The winners include Mr Consolidator (Melbourne), Welcome Parade (Brisbane), Titus Flavius (Hobart), Deen’n’Gee (Wyong, Gosford), Constant Rhythm (Bendigo) and Derrynane (Sale).
Courtesy of Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service
