After giving his first season sire Shalaa (IRE) the best possible to his career when winning the Breeders' Plate at Randwick, Shaquero provided champion trainer Chris Waller with his first win in the $2million Magic Millions 2yo Classic (RL) at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
The race may have been won at the barrier draw. While Shaquero received a cosy run from his inside barrier, most of his main dangers drew wide and were experiencing torrid runs.
Hugh Bowman was keen to get Shaquero off the rails coming around the home turn.
Eased out to the centre of the track Shaquro held the challenge of the local hope, the Toby and Trent Edmonds-trained Better Than Ready colt Alpine Edge by a length and a quarter with the winner's stablemate, the I Am Invincible filly She's All Class, the same distance back in third.
It was the third win in the race for Bowman.
“He travelled really well, he benefited from that hot speed early and barrier one was certainly a key ingredient to our success today,” Bowman said.
“I’ve won a couple of Magic Millions (Classics previously) and they were both from low draws and it is a huge advantage to draw inside.
“Full credit to Chris Waller, he’s not generally a back-up sort of trainer but starting this horse last week might have been the key to helping him relax into the rhythm that we saw him get into today.
“I thought on the line he was actually stargazing a bit and if you have a look at the slow motion vision he was pricking his ears on the line so there’s still more to come with him.
“He’s built an amazing training system, not only in New South Wales but around the eastern seaboard and I can only see that growing as we move into the next decade of horse racing.”
Part-owner David Divine said it was the culmination of three decades of trying to win the race.
“Thirty years we have been trying to win this race. Getting barrier one was fantastic.
“This is a great thrill. When he hit the front I thought this is it. He is probably at his peak fitness now.
“All credit to Chris (Waller) and Guy Mulcaster for buying the horse and to (part-owner) Neville (Morgan) and the other owners, this is incredible.”
Carrying the familiar white with royal blue hooped sleeves of Neville Morgan, Shaquero was a $160,000 purchase by Mulcaster Bloodstock out of the Fernrigg Farm draft at the 2020 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
He is a fourth-generation bred by Bob Hannon, being the second winner from three to race out of the Not A Single Doubt mare Fimatino.
The winner of two of her nine starts at Newcastle and Port Macquarie, Fimatino had a filly from the first crop of Hellbent in the Tyreel Stud draft at the Magic Millions. The Racing League purchased her for $360,000.
Fimatino is a half-sister to the Listed Singapore TC Stewards' Cup winner Ghozi (Catbird) and to the dam of the WS Cox Plate winner Shamus Award (Snitzel), out of the Luskin Star mare Finto Fling.
A 2-time winner in Sydney Finto Fling is a daughter of the imported Tap On Wood mare From The Wood (IRE).
The great-granddam of Proven Thoroughbreds speedy Hinchinbrook filly Brook Magic, From The Wood (IRE) won the Group III Concorde Stakes at Phoenix Park and was highly enough regarded by the Kevin Prendergast stable to run in three Group 1s, the Irish One Thousand Guineas, Moyglare Stud Stakes and Phoenix Stakes.
She was never a factor in any of those before continuing her track career in Australia.
In six starts in her adopted homeland From The Wood (IRE) added a win at Randwick over 1400 metres.
From The Wood (IRE) descends from a family that spent the best part of a century in Germany and Hungary's insular thoroughbred worlds.
Fimatino has a colt foal by Rubick and was covered by Cosmic Force last spring.
Shalaa’s early success has been reflected in the sales ring where his progeny have sold up to $1,150,000 at the Magic Millions.
