Birthday-boy All Too Hard celebrated more happy returns when Darhad became his 8th individual winner this month at Hawkesbury on Thursday.
Vinery Stud's second-season star was foaled on 21 September 2009 – a fortnight after his older half-sister Black Caviar won the Danehill Stakes-Gr.2 at Flemington.
Black Caviar was just 4 wins into a stellar 25-start career at that stage. Who could have thought that she'd go one to be one of the all-time greats and that the new colt, to be named All Too Hard would ever manage to emerge from her shadow to carve out a 4 x Group 1 career to be crowned a Champion in his own right.
Eight years on and Darhad, a first crop son of All Too Hard became his sire's 8th winner in a month. Darhad is also trained by Team Hawkes and gave Brenton Avdulla an armchair ride in the Angels Florist Hcp (1000m). He had been beaten a nose on his 2yo debut at Randwick last October and went out a $1.15 favourite against a small field this afternoon.
"That was just a track gallop and we got paid for it," Michael Hawkes declared. "It was good effort and it's good to see him get on the board. He's always shown ability and that will help his confidence.
"Brenton sat still in the straight and the horse still ran home the last 600m in 33.06s. He's owned by some good clients and it's upwards and onwards from here."
Darhad was a $370,000 buy at the 2016 Gold Coast Magic
Millions and is raced by China Horse Club, Vinery Stud, Bangaloe Stud's Julie
Ritchie, ATC Chairman Laurie Macri, Keiran Pryke & Dr Ameer Ibrahim.
A strapping chestnut, he is from Randwick stakes winner Kakakakatie (Zeditave) and holds a nomination for the Caulfield Classic-Gr.3 (2000m).
Éclair Sunshine is another All Too Hard with an entry for the Caulfield Classic on October 21. He looked super impressive when narrowly beaten by top colt Royal Symphony in the Pin & Win Plate-LR (1400m) at Flemington last Saturday.
Vinery stands All Too Hard for a $44,000 (inc gst) service fee and he has more black-type candidates in action this Saturday headed by unbeaten colt Superhard (Caulfield) and Kiwi-based Lincoln Hills (Hastings)
All Too Hard leads Australia's second-season sires with prizemoney of $340,000 this season. And with 8 individual winners to date in September, he's setting a cracking pace ahead of Your Song (4), Golden Archer (2), Bullet Train (2), Reliable Man (2), Dalakhani (2), Barbados (2) and Pierro (1).
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