'He’s got a physique like Mr Brightside' - third Group 1 winner for Harry Angel as War Machine strikes at Eagle Farm

Darley's champion sprinter and shuttle sire Harry Angel was provided with his third top-level winner when War Machine lived up to the hype with a powerful victory in Saturday’s Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm. 

The son of Dark Angel sits seventh on the general sires’ table - despite only three crops running - with seven Australian stakes winners from 129 runners, at 5.4 per cent, and with his other top-level victors being dual Group 1 winner Tom Kitten and exciting, unbeaten sprinter Private Harry.

He will stand for an almost doubled fee of A$66,000 (inc GST) in his seventh Australian season this spring. 

War Machine was inherited by Ben, JD and Will Hayes three starts ago following the death of his original co-trainer Mike Moroney and has now won all three starts for connections.

After scoring at Caulfield at odds-on, the four-year-old gelding became a Group winner when romping home in Doomben’s BRC Sprint.

That made him hot favourite for the Stradbroke, where he had only 53kg, with odds as short as $2.80 put up earlier this week. After drawing gate 13 of 18, he drifted till as much as $4 in some places on Saturday, before firming again to start $3.20, with only two other runners under double-figure odds.

War Machine emphatically proved those assessments correct in one of the most dominant Stradbroke wins of recent years.

With Tim Clark taking over from unfortunate foot injury victim Blake Shinn, War Machine settled three-wide with cover in eighth spot, behind Transatlantic.

Clark took no chances in coming six wide around the home bend, and War Machine showed his class in steaming to the lead at 300m, putting the race to bed.

On the line he had nearly a length to spare from local hope Yellow Brick, with veteran Private Eye third. Transatlantic weakened to ninth, one spot ahead of the other single-digit runner Golden Mile.

War Machine – raced by a group headed by Rupert Legh – now shapes as an attractive prospect for Everest slot holders. The slot owner has the right to nominate their own horse for the race, sell their slot or do a deal with the owner of another horse to share the prize-money. If he makes it to the race, two of Harry Angel’s best may now clash in that A$20 million feature in October, with Private Harry’s new owners Yulong locking the colt in for their slot already.

Apart from that, if War Machine contests The Everest, it would enact a mouth-watering clash between the Hayes brothers and their Hong Kong-based father David, who’s bringing sprint sensation Ka Ying Rising to race in the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s slot.

“We might take on my old man’s horse, Ka Ying Rising,” Ben Hayes said with a smile after the Stradbroke.

While clearly not underestimating the size of that task, he added: “You’ve got to be in it to win it.”

Hayes said his heart was “going a hundred miles an hour” after the win, which he said had been a plan as well executed as any could in a Group 1.

“Three wide with cover was exactly where we thought we’d be; we were really happy,” he told Sky Thoroughbred Central.

“The horse had done everything right. We had a lovely smooth run into the race. Luckily we got the right run, it was a great ride by our jockey, and the horse performed for us. We’re so proud of him.

“It’s a fantastic result and we’re absolutely pumped.”

In just a few weeks, the New Zealand-bred War Machine has gone from a potential stakes performer into one of the hottest horses in the country - and all after some inauspicious beginnings.

Bred by MDJ Bloodstock, he was passed in short of a NZ$100,000 reserve when offered in Ardsley Stud’s draft in Karaka Book 1 in 2022. He then went to the New Zealand Bloodstock Ready To Run Sale, where he again failed to meet the same reserve.

Finding his way into the ownership of a team headed by Moroney’s old Ballymore Stables and Legh, he opened his account as a spring three-year-old with a third and a ninth before returning from a spell to unleash his first winning hat-trick, culminating in the Bendigo Guineas in April last year.

He couldn’t win in four spring starts, lastly a disappointing 11th in the Rupert Clarke Stakes, but this year has been a different tale.

Harry Angel: Darley sire now responsible for three individual Group 1 winnersCredit: Darley

After Moroney’s death in February, War Machine had one run for the late trainer’s partner Glen Thompson, steaming home for second in the Hareeba Stakes at Mornington in mid-April.

He was then transferred to Lindsay Park, and his second hat-trick - and ascension to Group 1 winner - has followed.

Hayes said War Machine reminded him physically of his stable’s most famous star - Mr Brightside.

“A lot of people expect him to be a big powerful horse, but he’s got a physique like Mr Brightside, so hopefully it’s the same,” he said.

As emotions ran high after the race, Hayes made mention of the Moroney family, and members of the family of prominent New Zealand bloodstock agent Mick Wallace, who died last week.

“The Wallace family is in the ownership group and have had a really tough time lately,” Hayes said.

“And Mike Moroney - we were fortunate to get the horse. To be able to have a horse like him to train is amazing.

“To be able to get a result like this for Will, JD the whole team, Mike Moroney’s family, and the Wallace family, is really exciting.”

Clark said he was “pleasantly surprised” last Sunday morning to receive the call-up to partner War Machine, who provided him with his 26th Group 1 win, on a day when he also claimed the Brisbane Cup on Campaldino.

“Myself and Ben, we spoke before the race, and I just wanted to get on the three-wide line and get cover,” Clark said.

“I got on Transatlantic’s back, who I knew was going to take me far enough. I probably let him loose a bit early but this was a grand final, there’s no tomorrow, and I wasn’t going to die wondering.

“He really let rip. We could feel Yellow Brick coming late, and he sort of surged again.”

War Machine is the fifth and best of nine foals from Caserta, a winner at 1,000m and a half-sister to MRC Coongy Handicap victor Fire In The Night.

Caserta has a yearling colt by Satono Aladdin who was withdrawn from Inglis Easter this year, and a weanling filly by In The Congo. She was covered last spring by Per Incanto.

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