Royal Meeting's first Group 1 winner Hayasugi set Slipper mission after completing rare Blue Diamond clean sweep

Hayasugi added a gilt edge to her sire Royal Meeting’s buoyant start to stud life – and a juicy twist over his future – with another brilliantly defiant triumph as the fillies struck back in Saturday’s Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield.

Haysugi was barely fancied on the seventh line of betting but stormed home once more to become only the second filly, after Midnight Fever in 1987, to clean-sweep the Blue Diamond’s Preview, Prelude and main event.

Also the first horse overall to achieve the treble since Sepoy became the third male to do so in 2011, Hayasugi became the first filly to win the race since Lyre in 2019, in an edition in which the females resoundingly made up for lost time.

The first four home were fillies. Hayasugi, ridden by the country’s leading female rider Jamie Kah, settled worse than midfield on the outside from gate ten, and swooped in the last 100 metres to beat brave Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained on-pacer Lady Of Camelot by a head.

Another daughter of Yulong’s Written Tycoon, South Australian raider Kuroyanagi, was a length further back in third, just ahead of Eneeza, while the sixth-placed Matisse (Microphone) gave fillies five of the first six.

Royal Meeting was trained by Saeed bin Suroor for Godolphin and won his only two starts as a juvenile, a Yarmouth maiden and then the Group 1 Criterium International at Chantilly. He then had a year out before running third in a Group 3 at Caulfield, but was unable to recapture his two-year-old form.

Hayasugi has put Royal Meeting, by Invincible Spirit, on the map in a major and very immediate way as the shining light from his first crop of 60 live foals.

And her performance adds spice to some expected manoeuvrings around the eight-year-old’s future – between the stud that holds his standing rights. Aquis Farm, the stud whose three-year deal to stand him expired last year, Leneva Park, and potentially a range of rival farms who may want to acquire the stallion.

Royal Meeting ended up down under after being identified as a suitable stud target by bloodstock agent Dermot Farrington and Aquis Farm’s then CEO Shane McGrath.

After he was secured for some A$750,000 (approx £3880,000/€454,000), he began standing in Victoria for his group of around ten shareholders, who include Aquis, Seymour Bloodstock’s Mark Pilkington, McGrath and Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum.

Initially, Royal Meeting stood at Aquis Victoria, siring the first crop that now includes Hayasugi. When Aquis moved out to focus on its Queensland base and Leneva Park took over the lease on the property, Royal Meeting stayed put.

Aquis still retains the standing rights on the stallion, and its director of sales Jonathan Davies this week told ANZ Bloodstock News that no decision had been made as to where the stallion would stand. With negotiations ongoing over his standing rights, Leneva Park subsequently put its case to keep hold of Royal Meeting, alongside its other stallion Fierce Impact.

And the efforts of Hayasugi, Royal Meeting’s glowing sole winner from just six runners, are expected to trigger interest from rival farms in the stallion, who stood for just $11,000 in his first four years in Australia.

Jubilant trainer Clinton McDonald said he would now be taking Hayasugi to the A$5 million Slipper at Rosehill on March 23. 

"She's determined, she's tough and I thought it was stupid coming in today thinking she was 20-1. I just thought her last run was fantastic, for a two-year-old to be able to do that – she had no favours – and again today,” said McDonald.

"I think the Golden Slipper will really suit this filly, the way she attacks the line. For a young two-year-old, her tenacity is second to none. She’ll go straight to the Slipper.”

Bought for just A$47,5000 by James Bester and associates at the 2022 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale, Hayasugi is the fourth foal of the unraced China Road (Commands), a mare troubled by having only one ovary. Having missed on five matings since bearing Hayasugi, China Road was covered by Jacquinot last November.

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