With exactly one month until the 2020 Victorian Owners and Breeders Raceday at Caulfield, Racing Victoria (RV) has today released the ballot order for its two feature contests.
The second running of The Showdown (1200m) for two-year-olds and the inaugural edition of the VOBIS Sires Guineas (1600m) for three-year-olds are worth a combined $1.5 million and will headline one of Victorian racing’s premium off-season meetings on Saturday, 18 April.
Godolphin galloper Hanseatic, who suffered the only defeat of his career when finishing runner-up in last month’s Group 1 Neds Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield, heads the ballot order for The Showdown with earnings (excluding bonuses) of $570,000.
The next three on the list are all two-year-old colts sired by Darley’s leading Victorian stallion, Brazen Beau: the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained Ideas Man ($304,000), James Cummings’ Conceited ($271,250) and Busuttin Racing’s Larimer Street ($253,500).
Brazen Beau, who currently stands at Northwood Park, also features prominently in the ballot order for the VOBIS Sires Guineas, the new $500,000 contest open exclusively to the three-year-old progeny of Victorian stallions.
Three of Brazen Beau’s progeny – McEvoy Racing’s flying filly Pretty Brazen (third on $320,175), the Gerald Ryan-trained Colada (fourth with $279,400) and John Sadler’s progressive colt Sartorial Splendor (seventh on $159,250) – currently sit in the top 10 of the ballot order.
But it is another stallion, Swettenham Stud’s Puissance De Lune, who dominates the upper echelons of the ballot order with two of his offspring, the Mitch Freedman-trained pair Southern Moon ($413,150) and Moonlight Maid ($326,500), currently occupying first and second places respectively.
Should either win the VOBIS Sires Guineas it would complete a notable double for Swettenham Stud, with another of the stallions on their roster, Toronado, having sired the winner of the first edition of The Showdown, Prince Of Sussex.
Other high-profile gallopers in the VOBIS Sires Guineas ballot order include the Peter and Paul Snowden-trained Hightail (sixth on $213,900) whilst another father-son partnership, Tony and Calvin McEvoy, train Sunlight’s younger sibling Sisstar, who sits fifth on $217,000.
Both The Showdown and the VOBIS Sires Guineas form part of the VOBIS Gold Premier Race Series, an 18-race series open exclusively to VOBIS Gold-nominated horses offering a total of $4.68 million in prizemoney and bonuses.
Seven races on Victorian Owners and Breeders Raceday feature in the Premier Race Series, with those contests alone offering more than $2.7 million in prizemoney and bonuses, rewarding owners and breeders who invest in Victorian thoroughbred racing.
To view the full ballot order for the VOBIS Sires Guineas, please click here
To view the full ballot order for The Showdown, please click here