When boutique Hunter Valley nursery Cressfield secured young stakes-winning Galileo (IRE) mare Personify for $2million at the 2008 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale it’s fairly safe to say they did not anticipate they would be still waiting for her to produce a stakes-winner in 2020, but that looks set to change next season.
Personify has been a super reliable producer having had seven named foals for Cressfield, six have raced and all have won with Laser Flash, Selectify, Trope and this season’s two year-old Fastnet Rock filly Personal all placing in Black type races.
The latter made $640,000 at Inglis Easter and was third in the Group I MRC Blue Diamond with her return to training at Lindsay Park after a winter spell sparking considerable optimism for the spring.
"She is a real beast of a filly, she looks the part and she has done well, co-trainer Tom Dabernig told Racenet.
“We thought she probably should have nearly won the Blue Diamond. She was unlucky and finished off well. She has come back and looks great so maybe something like the Quezette Stakes into theAtlantic Jewel, Thousand Guineas Prelude, Thousand Guineas type of campaign.
“I would think she would be more a Thousand Guineas horse than a pure speed Coolmore sort of horse."
The Group I MRC Thousand Guineas has been a good race for Fastnet Rock fillies with previous winners Atlantic Jewel, Amicus and Irish Lights.
Being by Fastnet Rock from a daughter of Galileo, Personal is bred on a highly successful nick that has produced 18 stakes-winners, seven of them Group I winners, with a strike rate of 24% stakes-winners to runners.
The same nick in reverse with Galileo over Fastnet Rock mares has already produced six winners from nine runners headed by Group II winner Innisfree and recent Royal Ascot Group III winner Russian Emperor (from Atlantic Jewel) , who will take his place in the Group I Epsom Derby this weekend.
Footnote: The yearlings from Personify sold at auction by Cressfield have generated $2.39 million in total.
