ORTENSIA’S sire Testa Rossa is closing in on a major milestone with just a handful of winners needed to take his career tally to 500.
The Vinery Stud resident currently sits on 494 individual winners from a total of 687 starters giving him an unsually high winners-to-runners strike rate of 71.9 percent.
Testa Rossa is the sire of 46 stakeswinners and 45 stakes-placegetters with total progeny earnings in excess of $40 million.
Last weekend’s two-day Scone carnival was a triumph for the six-times Group 1 winner who sired three winners led by Cup winner Speediness while Bart Cummings won with Rosalie and son Anthony successful with the Stradbroke bound Fontelina.
Testa Rossa won six Group 1 races from 1000m up to a mile during his sparkling career.
He was also one of the easiest winenr of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (1200m) on record, a fact not lost of the firm’s boss Vin Cox.
“Testa Rossa is a very good consistent sire, he’s very versatile – he gets colts an fillies and horses that can get a a bit of trip and he gets a good two-year old,” Cox told Sportsman.
“He gets a good sound horse that races on. You cna kick off them off at two and they keep racing through the seasons.”
Testa Rossa’s versatility is reflected by the fact that he has sired Group 1 winners at 1000m and 2500m.
The grandson of Danzig has emerged as an unlikely sire-of-sires with two of his stakeswinning sons Publishing and Testafiable getting off to positive beginnings to their rspective stud careers.
Raheen Stud’s freshman sire Publishing has two unbeaten horses among his winning trio while the Victorian based Testafiable is currently represented by the Kyneton 3YO Sommelier Pete who waltzed in by 4.5-lens at Pakenham on Monday.
