Stepping up to G2-company for the first time, four-year-old Commands gelding Rain Affair blitzed his rivals in the G2 Expressway Stakes at Rosehill over 1200m on 11 February.
Rain Affair had already bankrolled $412,000 for his owner breeder Don Storey and today added a further $120,000 in a race he controlled from start to finish. Jockey Corey Brown was a passenger for most of the race as Rain Affair led and then cleared out in the straight to win by six-lengths.
The four-year-old gelding is the second foal of the Sydney-winning Octagonal mare I Believe, who chalked up an impressive record in her own right with four wins from five starts. Commands, who is enjoying great success with his two-year-old crop this season, is leading the general sires table on both number of individual winners and number of wins. Commands is now ranked outright second on number of Stakes wins behind Fastnet Rock.
Commands will be well represented at the upcoming yearling sales with eight lots catalogued for the Inglis Premier sale in Melbourne, including lot 336, a filly by the Stakes-winning mare Warm Smytzer. He then has a further nine nominees for the Inglis Easter sale including a filly from the G1-winning mare Our Egyptian Raine, lot 311, who is sure to create a great deal of interest.
Commands is coming off a highly successful 2010-11 Australian season which saw him earn honours as the leading sire of individual winners setting an unprecedented benchmark of 155 winners. The Stakes-winning son of Danehill is the sire of 44 Stakes winners in total, including this season’s Lamasery, Queen's Commands, Ambidexter, Jimando and Balmont.
