TESTA Rossa’s three winners in three States on Monday was overshadowed by boom galloper Heart Testa’s popular victory at Canterbury on Wednesday.
The Chris Waller trained three-year-old was heavily backed into odds-on for his first metro outing having scored a narrow but impressive win on debut at Newcastle.
The runner-up, Complicate, proved the form with a surging win at Kensington on Monday.
Heart Testa, who was bred by Gerry Harvey, is the second living foal of Flying Spur mare Graciela.
Blessed with both pace and speed, Heart Testa sat outside the leader at Canterbury namely Hidden Warrior, facing the breeze before surging away to record a widening 0.8-lens win.
“It has been a tidy effort,” Waller told TVN.
“It’s all in front of him because he’s still very green and raw. In his races, he’s pretty professional but he’s still got a lot of improvement to come.”
Heart Testa is one of 461 individual winners sired by Testa Rossa at a strike rate of almost 73 percent.
A six-times Group 1 winner himself, Testa Rossa has sired a total of 41 stakeswinners and 42 stakesplaced and has carved out a reputation as a ‘trainer’s horse’ given his offspring soundness, versatility and will to win.
“Monday’s three winners is an illustration of what makes Testa Rossa what he is,” Vinery Stud’s Conor Phelan began.
“Two of those three winners were new winners (one of them by 6-lens) and they ranged in distance from 1280m to 2200m. Testa Rossa has sired a Group 1 winner at 1000m and 2500m and up to ages seven and eight so they train on as well as any other stallion in memory.”
Testa Rossa has finished in the Top ten Leading General Sires in Australia for each of the past four years.
His flag was flown at full mast around the world by the champion mare Ortensia whose 2011/12 season saw her win 5 of her 8 starts including the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint (1000m) in Dubai on World Cup night as well as the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes (1006) at York in England.
Ortensia has also won stakes races in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
She was an unlucky fifth in the Hong Kong International Sprint behind J J The Jetplane, Rocket Man and Sacred Kingdom.
Testa Rossa will be represented in tomorrow’s Group 2 VRC Gilgai Stakes (1200m ) at Flemington by stakeswinning mare Sistine Angel who was runner-up behind Black Caviar in the Group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) in Adelaide.
