Invictus Salute earned herself a special chapter in the 100-year history of Sledmere Stud when scoring a superbly executed win in the Listed Starlight Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens in Sydney.
Drawn in barrier 1 and ridden to perfection by Rachel King, Invictus Salute sat in the ‘box-seat’ until the business end of the race when the 5-year-old daughter of Exceed And Excel was prised off the back of the leader Spaceboy before proving too strong for her eight quality opponents in the valuable black-type event.
The success of Invictus Salute was significant on a number of fronts — first and foremost because of the fact that she carried the colours of Sledmere Stud to victory.
Sledmere purchased Invictus Salute as a long-term breeding prospect earlier in the year from Mr & Mrs Geoff Grimish with a view to keeping her in training with Mark Newnham and providing the opportunity of landing a maiden black-type win.
Saturday’s success was the culmination of months of planning — Invictus Salute becoming the second individual stakes winner produced by Acquired (NZ), dam also of Group 2 Arrowfield 3YO Sprint Stakes winner Splintex.
Making Saturday’s Listed Race win of Invictus Salute even more special is the fact that she achieved the victory positively in foal to Australia’s most fashionable stallion, I Am Invincible. Covered during a relatively recent visit to Sledmere Stud, she won the Starlight Stakes some 60-odd days after visiting ‘Vinnie’ and with her first pregnancy well underway.
As Roy Murphy explained to Bren O’Brien for an article published by TDN Australia & New Zealand: “I was mindful that I wanted to cover her, but I also wanted to keep her going. We took her home for a short time, the girls here kept her working out on the hills. She came back from Mark’s looking a treat and she then went in foal and started to thrive.
“Pregnancy agrees with some of them and not others when racing on. Mark has been telling us how well she has been going and it’s been the same with the jockeys that have been getting on her. They have been saying she has been great in herself.”
Looking ahead to the next phase of the project, Roy added in the same interview: “I think just on physical, what we know Vinnie can throw and the sort she is, it will hopefully be an outstanding type of foal.”
Well, so far so good!