Deep Impact's legacy lives on with Hope in the Australasian Oaks

The influence of the late Japanese champion Deep Impact on the Australian racing scene reached its zenith when his daughter Glint Of Hope took the Australasian Oaks while his stallion son Real Impact recorded his biggest winner Down Under when Count De Rupee claimed the Victory Stakes in Brisbane.

The Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young-trained Glint Of Hope has long promised to deliver a big-race victory, having placed in both the Edward Manifold Stakes and the Ethereal Stakes before starting single figures in the VRC Oaks, where she finished seventh.

Arguably Australia’s best maiden heading into this preparation, she discarded that title when a comfortable winner over 1400 metres at Pakenham in March before placed efforts at Sandown and Caulfield.

One of a number of runners sent out at low double-figure odds for the Morphettville feature, Glint Of Hope was given a tremendous ride by Daniel Moor. Utilising gate two to full advantage, he managed to settle his filly ahead of midfield right on the back of favourite My Whisper behind what was a solid tempo set by outsider Ancient Girl.

When Jamie Kah, aboard My Whisper, shifted off the fence in anticipation of Ancient Girl weakening, Moor slipped Glint Of Hope slightly more rein, allowing her to get up underneath runners and to be in a position to pounce upon straightening.

That could have ended disastrously if Ancient Girl fell back into his lap, but she instead drifted off the rail herself, allowing Moor the most comfortable run through on the rails to hit the lead on the apex of the turn.

Glint Of Hope is most noted as a chaser, but she is also a filly whose acceleration is far from instant. Rather than a short, sharp burst, one of her greatest assets is her ability to sustain a sprint over a number of furlongs.

That made her a dangerous target once she hit the front early in the straight and so it proved as Kewney Stakes winner Barb Raider failed by a long head to reel in Glint Of Hope. Race favourite My Whisper finished a half-length away from the winner in third.

For co-trainer Natalie Young, who has been undergoing a breast cancer battle, Glint Of Hope has been exactly as her name suggests.

“I think it’s important to keep going and keep doing those things and getting up every morning and going to the stable, that has really got me through that really hard time so a big thanks to my family," Young told Racing.com. "I finished [chemotherapy] last week, thank God. There’s a little bit more to go through but we’ve all got sisters and mothers and one in seven women get breast cancer and it’s not something that we shouldn’t be talking about.”

Moor, who returned to the Australian riding ranks early last month after a short stint in Hong Kong, brought up his fourth Group 1 win of the season - a particularly noteworthy feat given he had not won an elite-level Australian feature before September.

In terms of Group 1 wins this season, he now sits alongside Hugh Bowman on four with only James McDonald (ten), Brett Prebble, John Allen and Damien Oliver (all five) ahead of him.

"I wanted to follow Jamie everywhere,” he said. “I rode that horse at its first start and it gave me a nice feel and it’s been unbeaten since.

"I knew she was the horse to drag us into the race. I had to make a decision down by the turn there to whip up the inside which was probably a bit sooner than I would have liked but I wouldn’t have got out any other way so I had to push the button early.

"She peaked a little bit but was then strong enough to the line."

The race almost produced a different remarkable breeding story as the late Victoria Derby winner Rebel Raider, one of the best South Australian-trained horses of the past two decades, nearly stole the show with Barb Raider.

While it would have been quite extraordinary for a daughter of Rebel Raider to hold out bluebloods by two of the world’s very best stallions in Deep Impact and Frankel, it wasn’t to be, although the Jerome Hunter-trained filly performed admirably in second.

Blueblood is the only appropriate term for Glint Of Hope, who boasts a pedigree that would once have seemed so unlikely for an Australasian Oaks.

A $250,000 Inglis Easter yearling, Glint Of Hope is out of Sacred Sight, an unplaced half-sister to Ascot Gold Cup winner and champion older British stayer Colour Vision.

Sacred Sight, who remains in Japan, produced a two-year-old Lord Kanaloa colt to southern hemisphere time in August, 2019. That colt, named Lovero, has already won a three-year-old dirt maiden at Tokyo in February despite conceding six months to his rivals.

She was not covered in 2020 to return her to a northern hemisphere breeding cycle, while she was served by two-time Group 1 winner Rey De Oro in 2021 but the resulting foal died at birth.

Glint Of Hope became Deep Impact’s fourth Australian Group 1 winner, joining Leneva Park stallion Fierce Impact, this season’s Spring Champion Stakes hero Profondo and Real Impact, who won the 2015 George Ryder Stakes for master trainer Noriyuki Hori.

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