The Benchmark 72 event at Canterbury last night over 1100m featured a couple of above average three year-olds in Sky Command and Able Willie and they duly fought out the finish.
The Gary Portelli trained daughter of Deep Field sported blinkers for the first time and jumped fast to lead all the way and win by half a neck over the strong finishing Written Tycoon gelding Able Willie.
Gary Portelli will be looking for Black Type races in the autumn for Sky Command, whose natural brilliance and ability to handle wet ground will take her a long way.
A homebred for Bert Vieira and his family, Sky Command has won three of six starts earning over $165,000.
She is the first winner for Love Commands, a winning daughter of Group III winner Sky Love from Stuart Ramsey’s famed Suggestive family that has produced horses like Group I winner Sky Cuddle and outstanding Group II winner Champagne Cuddles, the winner of over $1.4million.
Sky Command has an interesting pedigree that features three lines (6 x 4 x 4) of influential blue hen Eight Carat as her sire Deep Field traces in tail female line to the famed matriarch as do her first two dam sires Commands and Octagonal.
Love Commands produced a colt by Vieira’s champion colt Trapeze Artist last year and is now back in foal to him again.
Runner-up Able Willie will also be headed for Black Type making a pleasing return following a third in the Listed ATC Sir Brian Crowley Stakes back in the spring at just his second start.
Prepared by Chris Waller for Hermitage Thoroughbreds, he looms as another potential stakes-winner to carry the colours made famous by horses such as The Autumn Sun and September Run.
