VICTORY for the five-year-old Bella Vella in Saturday’s Group 1 TAB Classic Robert Sangster Stakes over six furlongs at Morphettville is a heart-warming tale. The daughter of Commands (Danehill) was sold for just $22,500 at the 2019 Inglis Digital Monthly April Sale after she failed to get in foal.

She was purchased by John Kelton, who raced the 2012 Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes winner Alcopop, and placed with a syndicate which includes her trainer Will Clarken. What a transformation he has brought about and she has won six of 11 starts for Clarken and most of her $634,360 in earnings. The mare has won 10 times in all.

Such was the company Bella Vella was keeping at the weekend that she was one of the outsiders, in spite of good recent form, but she went straight into the lead and denied a late challenge by Lyre to record a famous win. It was the first Group 1 success for Clarken, and was gained in the colours of his late father.

One of 80 stakes winners for the late Australian champion sire Commands, Bella Vella is out of Forget The Weather (Stormy Atlantic) who was purchased by Glenn Burrows’ Willow Park Stud for $50,000 at the 2011 Keeneland November Breeding Sale. Forget The Weather is a half-sister to three stakes winners, while her grandam, the US stakes winner Wedding Picture (Blushing Groom), is the dam of four blacktype winners and grandam of the Champion Turf Female in the USA, Forever Together (Belong To Me).

In between, Forgot The Weather is out of the stakes-placed Wedded Bliss (His Majesty) and eight of her nine foals won, three of them at stakes level in the USA. This is also the immediate family of the leading sire Broken Vow (Unbridled)

Bella Vella sold for $100,000 to Paul Moroney at the 2016 Gold Coast Magic Millions Yearling Sale. Originally trained by Mike Moroney for whom she was a winner, Bella Vella also won twice for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, prior to a shift to Matthew Vella. She was covered in 2018 but failed to go in foal and was sold on.

Her owners were not the only people cheering on this Group 1 success. After being sold at the 2017 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $40,000, Bella Vella’s dam Forget The Weather made her way back to the same venue two years later and was purchased, in foal to Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor), for $20,000 by Fionnuala Timoney. The hugely experienced Timoney is bloodstock and client communications manager at Coolmore Australia and the principal in Calvados Bloodstock.

Extremely lucky

“I’ve only got the two mares at the moment, along with a share in exciting young Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) stallion, Jukebox,” Timoney said this week. “I had a budget of $30,000 when I bought Forget The Weather, so considered myself extremely lucky to get her for $20,000. As luck would have it though, I sold Forget The Weather’s Shooting To Win weanling, a colt, for $25,000 in last week’s Inglis Digital Sale. How’s that for timing?

“Actually, the wonderful thing is that the Shooting To Win colt was purchased by Justin Carey, who looks after the resident foaling unit at Coolmore. Justin is thrilled with Bella Vella’s Group 1: he’s already syndicated the colt out to family and friends, including his father in South Africa and a friend in Japan.

“Obviously things would be a lot different if I was selling the colt this week, but Forget The Weather is in foal to European champion two-year-old Churchill (Galileo) and, on the back of Saturday’s Group 1, she’ll likely visit Snitzel or Fastnet Rock (Danehill) this spring.”