Verona provides Belardo with a first southern hemisphere Group success

Darley's Belardo netted a landmark southern hemisphere win when his daughter Verona claimed the first Group race on a glittering Saturday card at Randwick, the Frank Packer Plate.

The stallion, based at Kildangan Stud, has shuttled to Haunui Farm in Karaka, New Zealand, and this filly began her career by landing a maiden at Te Aroha before switching recently to the powerful Australian stable of Ciaron Maher and David Eustace.

Bought for just NZ$8,000 (£4,100/€5,000) from Haunui by Cypress Point Farms at Book 3 of the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Sale, the only filly in the field had drawn a blank in five starts in better company before causing an upset at 20-1 as she picked her way up the rail under Willie Pike to win quite stylishly.

Verona was bred out of the Stravinsky mare Spamalot for Don and Dame Wendy Pye - an extremely successful New Zealand publisher.

Belardo, the Dewhurst and Lockinge winner, now has three racing crops in Europe and this was his fourth Group victor to follow Isabella Giles (Rockfel), Elysium (Weld Park) and Lullaby Moon (Prix Miesque). He has seven stakes winners, including one in New Zealand.

“She probably has to go to the Queensland Oaks now,’’ Johann Gerard-Dubord, the stable's representative, told reporters.

“Top of the ground is no issue for her but she obviously she gets through the wet.

“She raced at the end of January and landed here about ten days after the Karaka Millions. She has been here for a while, she spent a bit of time at the beach and we have taken our time with her.”

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