Compas Stallions' freshman sire Strath Burn strikes with very first runner

First-season sire Strath Burn got off to a winning start with his first runner when Speed Whay landed a maiden for debuting colts and geldings over five furlongs at Naples on Friday.

Speed Whay cut out most of the running in the five-runner event before overcoming greenness under pressure to win by half a length.

Showing precocity as a multiple Group-placed two-year-old, the Charlie Hills-trained Strath Burn went within half a length of winning the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin over five and a half furlongs in July of his juvenile season. He was also runner-up in the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes.

At three, Strath Burn won the Group 3 Hackwood Stakes over six furlongs before going agonisingly close in the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup, beaten a short head by Twilight Son.

He was marked down as an unlucky loser there, drawn on the other side of winner Twilight Son and third Magical Memory, causing him to drift towards the duo in the latter stages. The career-best performance earned him a Racing Post Rating of 118.

Strath Burn inherited the speed of his sire Equiano, a dual winner of the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot; himself by another potent source of speed in influential sire Acclamation.

Free of Northern Dancer until the fifth generation, Strath Burn is a half-brother to a Group 1-performing juvenile in Polar Force, who placed in the Phoenix Stakes.

Speed Whay was a €7,500 graduate of the Goffs Sportman’s Sale, selling to SSIM srl from Collegelands Stud. Out of the three-time winning sprinter Go Maggie Go, a daughter of Kheleyf, Speed Whay is a half-sister to Listed winner Terre Brune, named Italy’s champion older female sprinter in 2015.

Strath Burn, under the Compas Stallions banner, stood for three seasons at Bridge House Stud - his latest fee advertised at €4,000 with a filly foal free return concession.

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