Overseas Success

Rockmount has a strong Hong Kong connection but none more so than Marie Yoshida’s Asian Bloodstock Services. Marie is a very good judge of a horse and is seen at all the major yearling sales in Australasia. All of Marie’s yearling purchases make their way back to Rockmount prior to their departure to Hong Kong and we have had great success as a team. Brett Cavanough breaks in the majority of Marie’s horses at his stables in Albury and Peter Moody does a terrific job of getting them all up to trial stage and beyond. Ample Gains has been a great advertisement for our system over the last couple of seasons in Hong Kong and he showed he still has plenty to give when winning a mile class 2 event at Sha Tin on November 3rd. In a race worth $HK1,050,000 the gelded son of Danehill from Tamarino toughed it out under Olivier Delouze and the win will have given the horse tremendous confidence for the rest of the season. On the same card, another of Marie’s buys Supreme Gains showed that he will be a force to be reckoned with this campaign with an eye catching 3rd in his first race back from a spell.

Meanwhile, in America, the Darley owned mare Astronomia broke through for her first black type success when winning the Listed Valor Lady Stakes over 1200 metres. Run on the turf at Belmont Park on September 20th, the daughter of King’s Best out of Astralita won well and built on the promise she showed when racing in Australia including a 2nd placing in the VRC Wakeful Stakes. We are proud to claim her as a Rockmount speller and pretrainer.

From New York to Scotland, and an important winner at Ayr on September 22nd. As you can read in “Rockmount Racing” on this website, Geoff Guest and Jill Kewish purchased three yearling fillies at the 2007 yearling sales and a win in the Group 3 Firth of Clyde Stakes over 6 furlongs produced a significant pedigree update for one of those fillies. Unilateral is a daughter of Rock Of Gibraltar out of Mira Adonde making her a half sister to Plaisir D’amour, the dam of one of our purchases Saranah Gold. Unilateral had already finished 4th in the Group 2 Lowther Stakes and is currently a 12/1 chance for next season’s English 1,000 Guineas.