Consistent form of four G1 second placings was rewarded by Wyndspelle when he registered his first win at the top level in Saturday’s G1 Captain Cook Stakes at Trentham in New Zealand.
Wyndspelle became the 10th G1 winner for his sire Iffraaj and the fourth to have been bred in New Zealand.
The well-deserved victory was the fourth in a career in which he has campaigned willingly on both sides of the Tasman.
While he has been a regular Stakes placegetter, Saturday’s win was the fourth in a career which has also yielded 16 placings, 11 of them in Stakes races.
After jumping fairly, Wyndspelle settled near last and his jockey Jason Waddell kept him near the rear until straightening and the six-year-old produced a withering burst that took him to the front before the 200m from where he held off the runner-up Shadows Cast to win by 1-1/4 lengths.
Waddell spoke for all connected with the horse declaring he’d never lost faith in him.
“He’s a horse that I’ve always been so fond of and he deserved it more than anybody else out here,” he said.
“He got out a little bit stagnant as he can do and the race was upside down as I didn’t expect a speed like that, so I just let him get comfortable.”
Wyndspelle was a $75,000 purchase from the Hallmark Stud draft at the 2015 Karaka National Yearling Sale.
He joins the fellow NZ-bred Gingernuts, Jon Snow and Turn Me Loose among Iffraaj’s dominion-bred G1 winners.
He is also on a G1 list that includes the champion European miler and Darley stallion Ribchester and the dual hemisphere G1 winner Jungle Cat.
Iffraaj spent the most recent southern hemisphere breeding season under the Darley banner at Haunui Farm in New Zealand and will stand the northern hemisphere season at Dalham Hall Stud at Newmarket.
