This Saturday’s $500,000 Vinery Stud Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill carries the prestige of being a Group 1 but is also renowned as a launching pad for Australasia’s leading 3yo fillies.
The winner is exempt from a ballot into the Group 1 Australian Oaks (2400m) on April 9 and two of the last three Vinery Stud Stakes winners – Verry Elleegant (2019) and Hungry Heart (2021) – have gone on to complete the classic double at Randwick.
The Vinery Stud Stakes was Verry Elleegant’s first Group 1 success and she has kept delivering for trainer Chris Waller. The NZ-bred Champion was rated the world’s best racemare after winning the Group 1 Melbourne Cup by four lengths in November. Her most recent Group 1 victory in the Chipping Norton Stakes at Randwick last month was her 11th at the elite level.
Last year’s Vinery Stud Stakes was also a Group 1 breakthrough for her stablemate Hungry Heart who has been nominated for the Group 2 Canadian Club Emancipation Stakes (1500m) this Saturday.
Waller has nominated four fillies for this Saturday’s renewal of the Vinery Stud Stakes including Roots who is a daughter of Vinery Stud sire Press Statement.
“It is a great pleasure for Vinery Stud to support racing through our sponsorship of the Vinery Stud Stakes. It is a time honoured Group 1 race for three-year-old fillies who are the broodmares of the future and therefore, the life blood of our industry and the core of our business.
“It is the thirteenth year of the running of the Group 1 Vinery Stud Stakes, with past graduates of the likes of Verry Elleegant, Hungry Heart, Shout The Bar, Mosheen, etc, a great testament to the class and ability it requires to win a race of this standing,” said Vinery’s General Manager, Peter Orton.
Since Vinery took over naming rights to what was the Storm Queen Stakes, six of the races’ winners have gone on to be named Champions and nine have become millionaires or multimillionaires.
Vinery Stud is located in the heart of thoroughbred country, just ten kilometres south-east of Scone in the Hunter Valley. The property has a history going back to 1820s when it was owned by Thomas Potter McQueen and it has figured prominently in the modern era winning the Golden Slipper Stakes seven times!
The fertile pastures of the prominent Hunter Valley farm are responsible for rearing the Slipper winners Luskin Star (1977), Full On Aces (1981), Belle Du Jour (2000) and Farnan (2020).
Several of Australia’s most successful breeders and businessmen joined forces in 2005 to form a partnership which directs Vinery today. Vinery’s legendary shuttler More Than Ready (USA) added more Golden Slippers with Sebring (2008) and Phelan Ready (2009) and fellow Vinery stallion Mossman chimed in with Mossfun in 2014.
To view the noms for this Saturday’s running of the exciting race click here.
