COOLMORE STUD

STAKES (GROUP 1)

HAVING settled near the tail in a swiftly run sprint up the Flemington straight six, Merchant Navy repaid his large cast of owners in spades with a late lunge to win the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes by a head, driven home by Mark Zahra. Denied in the shadows of the post was the I Am Invincible filly Invincible Star, with the filly Formality third, making it first and third in the race for Fastnet Rock.

Trained by Aaron Purcell, standing in for the suspended Ciaron Maher, Merchant Navy can count Tom Magnier, Demi O’Byrne, Ken Barry, Michael Kirwan and Peter O’Brien among his owners with the later on hand when Legally Bay foaled down her colt. “From the time he hit the ground I loved him,” said O’Brien. “I thought he was a one-in-a-million horse. I never buy yearlings but from the day he was foaled I was going to keep a share in him and that (win) was the most amazing feeling of my life. When he burst through on the fence, I burst into tears. No horse has never done that to me.”

A $350,000 yearling at the Inglis Sydney Easter Yearling Sale, Merchant Navy has now won five of six race starts, his only blemish an unplaced run in the Golden Rose. “He looks cheap now but it was a year when the Fastnet Rock didn’t sell well,” said Michael Kirwan. “We have been waiting for a colt like him to come through and now we have one. A Fastnet horse has won the race and the other Fastnet Rock filly ran third. It’s huge for the farm.”