Ivictory leads home Australian trifecta in The Chairman's Sprint

Australia’s international reputation for producing outstanding sprinters was further enhanced in Hong Kong last Sunday when Australian-breds filled the first three placings in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize at Sha Tin.

The winner, in dashing style by a half-length, was rising star Ivictory, a four-year-old gelding, who defeated two stablemates, Mr Stunning and Beat The Clock, giving their Australian trainer John Size a memorable trifecta in this prestige sprint test.

Ivictory was bred in NSW by John Woods (The Old Crossing), who sold him as a weanling for A$67,500 at the 2014 Magic Millions National Weanling Sale at the Gold Coast. His purchaser then re-offered Ivictory at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale when he fetched A$80,000.

Group 1 winner Mossman, Ivictory’s sire, is rising 23 years old but will serve a small book of mares at a private fee this season at Vinery Stud.

Mossman has moved homes several times since starting his stud career in 2000 and, like his own sire Success Express, has made the most of his opportunities, with Ivictory being his 39th stakes winner and sixth Group 1 victor following world class sprinter Buffering, winner of A$7.3 million, Golden Slipper Stakes winner Mossfun, Coolmore Classic winners Ofcourseican and Plucky Belle and Miss Mossman, who had the quality and stamina to win the New Zealand Oaks.

The veteran stallion provided three black type winners, Dothraki, Moss Trip and Cellarman, during the recent Sydney autumn carnival while his Group 2-winning son Love Conquers All has made an encouraging start to his stud career for Sun Stud, moving to Victoria for the 2018 season.

Success Express, Mossman’s now deceased father, became an important broodmare sire so it does not surprise that Mossman is emulating him in that regard, particularly as he is out of a daughter of influential sire Twig Moss. Stakes winners to date for Mossman mares are Benny’s Buttons, Real Surreal, Like A Butterfly, Avaladyluck, Bons Away and Cailin Miss.

Ivictory, meanwhile, is out of Inca Lagoon, an unraced daughter of an even more accomplished maternal grandsire in Hussonet.

The Group 1-winning gelding is Inca Lagoon’s first foal while her second foal, a filly by Onemorenomore born in 2014, has not been named and her two-year-old colt Ancient Aztec has to date raced only once. Following them for the mare are a 2016 colt by Star Witness and a Reset colt born in 2017.

Inca Lagoon’s stakes-winning dam Tyrolean, bred by popular owner/breeders Geoff and Beryl White, was a talented performer but a disappointing producer as you will see from the catalogue pedigree reproduced here.

Tyrolean is a half-sister to Yippyio, one of the Whites’ star gallopers of the late 1990s, a horse which developed something of a cult following due to his name and consistent performances in many of Australia’s top distance races.

Yippyio won eight stakes events, headed by the Queensland Derby and the Brisbane Cup and among his 12 stakes placings was a second to Brew in the 2000 Melbourne Cup.

Tyrolean and Yippyio were half-relations to the speedy stakes winner Iglesia, a very promising sire before his early demise. Iglesia’s name lives on through the deeds of his leading sire son, Written Tycoon.

Yodells, third dam of Ivictory, was a good winner in Sydney and Brisbane but her racing class is best illustrated by her four stakes placings which included a third to Richfield Lady in the 1991 VRC Oaks.

Her dam Yodelling Lady was a fine producer as her other foals included Yodelay, a stakes-winning brother to Yodells and Burglar of Bamff, a prolific winner whose most important victory came in the Ipswich Cup.

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