Sultry Assassin: Keeping up a Trend

Since the New Zealand Oaks shifted to March, the Group Two Royal Stakes over 2000m on New Years Day at Ellerslie has become significantly less of a guide to the result of the Trentham Classic. However Sultry Assassin (Keeper-Blackrock College), who made ground stylishly from last at the turn to finish sixth in Tuesday's renewal, looks an improving type ideally suited to the timing and distance of the Oaks.

The rescheduling of the Oaks has made it an extremely difficult race for a filly who has targeted the competitive Filly of the Year series, to win. Nowadays the best Oaks form tends to come from those fillies who have either had a mid season break from the rigours of the series, or simply from an improving filly such as Sultry Assassin.

Success at Trentham for Sultry Assassin would maintain an astonishing record for her sire Keeper, whose daughters Keep The Peace and Midnight Oil were back to back winners in 2010 and 2011 respectively - astonishingly, another Keeper filly Can't Keeper Down was narrowly beaten by Jungle Rocket in 2009.

Sultry Assassin is clearly the most talented of the five foals of racing age left by her dam, Blackrock College (Volksraad-Marscade), herself an outstanding three-year of her time, winning twice at group three level and running second to Final Destination in the Group One New Zealand Two Thousand Guineas. Her other four foals to race have won just once, a maiden at Wanganui, from north of 50 accumulated starts.

While Sultry Assasin is the first show of form from her dam, the female family of Sultry Assassin has undergone significant rejuvenation over the last couple of years thanks to the broodmare prowress of Cashcade (Anziyan-Marscade), a half sister to Blackrock College.

Cashacde is yet another example of the wonderful ambiguities of breeding. Significantly inferior in racetrack
ability to her half sister and by Danehill's much maligned brother Anziyan, Cashcade has defied the odds and become a wonderful propagator of talent since her bargain basement purchase by Newmarket Lodge proprietor John O'Brien at the 2007 National Broodmare Sale. Her breeding record is well documented on this site but as an update, her unraced two-year-old Pentire filly Sabatini shows all the family ability on the training track, working the final 600m of a gallop in 35.5 last Saturday morning.

Unraced at two, Sultry Assassin debuted in September over 1200m at Taupo, finishing fourth after a tough run. She gave her first real hint of ability at her third start, when after sitting three and four wide throughout a 1600m maiden on Matamata Cup Day, she still had the audacity to hit the lead shortly after turning for home, before wilting to finish sixth, beaten less than three lengths. After that run the odds were never going to be fancy for her next start, again over 1600m, this time at Pukekohe where she waltzed home by over five lengths.

Next up, she settled a long way from the lead in a 1600m event at Te Rapa, before finishing strongly for third to the handy mare Classcoroc. Her final start before the Royal Stakes was the Group Three Eulogy Stakes over 1600m, where she finished solidly from midfield on the turn, beaten four lengths by the winner Soriano.

Despite a 28 November birthday, Sultry Assassin was a very well developed yearling when inspected as part of her breeder and vendor Cambridge Stud's 2011 Karaka Select Sale draft. Other prominent features noted on her catalogue page by my pen were her "ears", which were extremely big I recall, and an "excellent temperament". Paul Moroney - openly an advocate for big ears on a filly - purchased her for $80,000.

While a little shorter in the cannons and more upright through the shoulder than her relations Ekstreme and Pellegrini, she exhibited that same "rugged " type of strength that these days is often camouflaged at the yearling sale by muscle and condition.

While the superstitious are unlikely to look optimistically at Sultry Assassin's chances of adding further to the New Zealand Oaks record of her sire, she has the racing and pedigree profile to be a serious player in the Trentham Classic. Regardless of the outcome at Trentham, Sultry Assassin has exhibited sufficient ability in her short racing career to indicate black-type success should be just around the corner, which will make her a very valuable broodmare proposition, especially with the renaissance of her female family.

Footnote: Lot 494 in the upcoming Karaka Select Sale is a half sister to Sultry Assassin by first season sire Tavistock.