Maurice (Jpn) missed a season of shuttling to Australia in 2020 so had no yearlings last year and as a result no two year-olds to run this season and also has only a small crop of three year-olds, but buyers have not forgotten his merits and Rosemont Stud were well rewarded with a colt from Soft Sand selling for $600,000 on Wednesday to set a new benchmark in Australia for his sire.
Purchased by Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott/Kestrel Thoroughbreds, the colt is a full brother to stakes-placed Killiako, he is the fourth foal of Group I placed stakes-winner Soft Sand, a Dansili grand-daughter of French Group I winner Loving Claim.
“We’ve had some success with Maurice. His is a profile that’ll give him a bit of scope to get over a bit of ground in time, but the good thing is they’ve got the class that they can still be versatile enough to be racing at wo and they can still have a presence in those nice races," said Adrian Bott.
“He looks a particularly nice style of horse. He’s mature, he’s got that nice early foaling date, from a good proven family.
“There’s a lot to like about him, the stats on the stallion are very good and he looks a nice individual.”
The sale was a great result for Rosemont, who purchased Soft Sand from Arrowfield through the Inglis Digital April (late) Sale in 2022 for $255,000 when she was carrying this colt.
Australian breeders were a bit unsure of Maurice when he arrived on the scene in 2017 being from an unfamiliar branch of the Roberto sireline from a daughter of Sadler’s Wells sire Carnegie, who did achieve good success in Australia primarily as a classic type sire of middle distance horses.
The emergence of Group I stars Hitotsu and Mazu won breeders over and he’s been really popular since returning in 2021 to Arrowfield covering books of 156, 165 and 148 mares in the last three years at fee of $44,000 and then two years at $82,500.
Whatever Maurice has done up until now it’s fairly safe to say there is a lot more to come.
