Champion colt returns a winner

Resuming from a spell off the back of two barrier trials, Champion Two-year-old Lonhro colt Pierro produced a gutsy effort to defeat the previously unbeaten Rebel Dane in the G2 Hobartville Stakes over 1400m at Rosehill on 2 March.

A race won by his 11-time G1-winning sire 11 years ago, no G1 Golden Slipper winner since Marscay in 1984 had been able to win the Hobartville during their Autumn three-year-old season.

Racing without his usual gear addition of blinkers, the Gai Waterhouse-trained colt settled out wide in fourth position, and once the field rounded the home turn, jockey Nash Rawiller pulled the colt even wider to make his run. Knuckling down over the final 200m, he was challenged late by Rebel Dane, but found enough fight to record his ninth career Stakes victory.

Bred by Darley, Pierro is out of the Daylami mare Miss Right Note, a half-sister to Octagonal’s French G1-winning son Laverock. Miss Right Note foaled a sister to Pierro in 2011 before producing a Street Cry filly in 2012, with the mare returning to Lonhro in the latest breeding season.

One of five individual G1 winners for his sire, and one of 36 Stakes winners in total, Lonhro was represented earlier in the day by Launay who recorded his second Stakes victory at Flemington.

With eight yearlings set to sell by the Champion sire at the Inglis Premier yearling sale including lot 22, a brown colt out of the dual G1-winning Canny Lad mare Republic Lass from the draft of Tyreel Stud, Lonhro has a further 24 yearlings catalogued for the Inglis Easter yearling sale in April.