SONIA Rogers and her son Anthony enjoyed an eye-catching success at the weekend when their four-year-old homebred Kingman (Invincible Spirit) filly, Mrs Fitzherbert, capitalised on her recent good form and won the Listed Conqueror Stakes over a mile at Goodwood.
Three of the last five winners of the race have gone on to group or graded race success, Blond Me at Grade 1 level in Canada, Nyalati at Group 2 level when capturing the German 1000 Guineas, and Laugh Aloud in a Group 3. Winning trainer Hughie Morrison hopes to do likewise with Mrs Fitzherbert, and anything she does from now will be icing on the cake when it comes to taking her back to Airlie for breeding.
Mrs Fitzherbert was offered for sale as a yearling at Goffs but failed to trade after bidding reached €140,000. A few weeks after the sale the filly’s own-sister Moll Davis (Kingman), already a two-time winner, was placed in a listed race in France. She too had suffered the ignominy of going to the sales and coming home again. She was from the first crop of Kingman and she failed to sell at 70,000gns.
Moll Davis is at Airlie – she was covered last year by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross) - and will no doubt be joined in time by her own-sister, and it would need multiples of their yearling valuations to acquire either of them now. They are among six winners produced by Stupendous Miss, a Grade 3 winner in the USA and a daughter of Dynaformer (Roberto).
Millionaire mare
A winner in France before she went to the USA, Stupendous Miss was bought at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses In Training Sale for 50,000gns as a three-year-old by McKeever St Lawrence. After she won a graded stakes in the USA, and was in foal for the first time to Distorted Humor (Forty Niner), her sale value had soared to $1.3 million at Keeneland.
Five years later Sonia Rogers gave $400,000 for her at Keeneland, carrying a colt by Summer Bird (Birdstone) who went on to win four times.
Mrs Fitzherbert joins Do It All (Distorted Humor), a $900,000 yearling and a Group 2 winner in Meydan), and Tales Of Grimm (Distorted Humor), a dual listed winner in Australia and beaten a short head in a Group 3 in England, as the third stakes winner from Stupendous Miss.
Enjoying her time in a field at Airlie is their yearling sibling by Magna Grecia (Galileo), and she failed to find a buyer last November as a foal at Goffs. It will cost a bit more than €50,000 to buy her today!!
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