Rosemont Stud and partners had plenty to cheer about at Moonee Valley on Friday night when their blueblood Zoustar stallion Schwarz scored a brilliant all the way win in the $350,000 Group II MVRC Australia Stakes (1200m).
Trained by John O’Shea and Tom Charlton, Schwarz was already a Group II winner going into the race and with two recent trials under his belt was ready to fire first up from a spell.
Ridden a positive race by Blake Shinn from an outside gate, he powered across to take the lead and gave a great kick on the turn to slip away and put a margin on his rivals with Steparty doing best of the beaten brigade to finish second some two lengths adrift of the flying four year-old.
“He’s always been a horse we liked a lot and he has that ability and class, but he’s had a couple of runs where he’s gotten it wrong and then you saw tonight when he gets in a rhythm, he killed them half way through the race and looked in control the whole way,” said Tom Charlton.
“This horse has now won four stakes races, tow of them at Group 2 level and we are so grateful to have him for a great bunch of clients and he’s still lightly raced so now we’d hopefully like to tick off a Group 1.
“We’ll look at the Orr Stakes as we think he’ll definitely handle 1400m and the Canterbury Stakes back in Sydney might be another option.”
Blake Shinn was thrilled with the win of Schwarz and believes there are more wins to come.
“He dominated that race. He jumped on the front foot and basically took me where he wanted to be and I just sat with him and tried to rate him as best I could,” said Shinn.
“It was a good effort as he did it from start to finish and he was a strong winner today.”
A $1.25million Magic Millions purchase from the Widden Stud draft for Rosemont-Victorian Alliance/Suman Hedge Bloodstock (FBAA)/David Redvers Bloodstock, Schwarz was bred by Widden in partnership and has the overall record of five wins and a second from 10 starts with prizemoney in excess of $700,000.
He is the first living foal of Group II winning Not a Single Doubt mare Summer Sham, who traces back to blue hen Shantha’s Choice, the dam of Group I winners Redoute’s Choice, Manhattan Rain and Platinum Scissors. Schwarz has an intriguing pedigree with three lines 4 x 4 x 4 of Shantha’s Choice.
Summer Sham is married to Zoustar and her two year-old colt by him called Tuscany sold for $1.55 million at Inglis Easter last year to China Horse Club / Newgate / Go Bloodstock / Trilogy.
Summer Sham produced another filly by Zoustar last year and is back in foal to him again.
