As the only foal of the late Santissima (Quest For Fame), Serenissima has much to live up to in continuing the success of her branch of the family but she has started in very promising fashion with a four-and-a-half length win at Canterbury on Friday.
The Lonhro filly is trained by Peter Snowden for Sheikh Mohammed and has gone into many observers’ notebooks as a potential future star for her sire, whose Stakes winners from his first two crops of runners include Minnesota Shark and Black Minx.
Adding to Lonhro’s wins' tally, which sees him in third place in the second-crop sires’ list behind fellow Darley stallions Reset and Exceed And Excel, were Santangelo and Tampika, both of whom scored at Matamata in New Zealand.
Tampiko, at $500,000, was the most expensive yearling of Lonhro’s first crop. Her illustrious mother is the G1 Salinger Stakes winner Ancient Song, by Canny Lad. Santagelo is out of the American-bred Storm Cat mare Lucky Be Lucky, whose half-sister Love Lock is a Grade One winner in the US.
In the sales ring, the first session of the Inglis Christmas Thoroughbred Sale in Sydney concluded with good results for Bernardini, who was the covering sire of the two top-priced mares Dai Ichi (Fuji Kiseki) and Princess Bayley (Fusaichi Pegasus). An Octagonal mare, Apocrypha, sold for the third highest price of the day and she is carrying to Commands, while Caramelia, by Strategic, was fourth in line, sold in foal to Ad Valorem.
