At the start of August we ran a story about the 3YO’s that were entered for this year Cox Plate and aside from the usual suspects there were some ‘Cox Plate dreamers’ and one of them was unraced Lonhro colt Attica, who capped his meteoric rise to fame with a thrilling victory in the $2million Group I ATC Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on Saturday.
A homebred for Godolphin that had five barrier trials for James Cummings, but ended his juvenile season unraced, Attica was sent to Joe Pride when Godolphin cut ties with his former trainer.
Pride has done an impressive job nurturing G1 talent into a G1 win with a last start win in the Listed ATC Dulcify Quality (1600m) priming the colt for his first crack at the elite level.
Adam Hyeronimus has been the regular rider for Attica and also race favourite Shangri La Boy and he ended up on the Lonhro colt and produced a gem of a ride to win after drawing wide.
Attica hunted down Shangri La Boy with grim determination to win by a long neck with improving filly The Pearls a brave third.
Attica has three wins and a second from four starts with earnings of $1.3million and the surface has barely been scratched.
"I've never won a Group 1 race with a colt before,'' Pride said.
"Most of my big race winners have been with older horses, geldings and mares, so to win this race with such a high-profile colt as Attica is very satisfying.
"Attica has gone from a maiden to a Group 1 win in four starts all in his first preparation and that is something I haven't done before, either.
"I've been handed a beautiful horse by Godolphin and horses like this weren't on my doorstep a couple of years ago, so it's nice to be working with quality and yeah, it's a great result.''
Adam Hyeronimus was thrilled to get the win.
"I find with this race, it's very much the same every year, the best horse generally wins,'' Hyeronimus said.
"I've ridden the second horse and I don't know if Adrian (Bott trainer of Shangri La Boy) was trying to play mind games with me through the week but I galloped him and I was like ‘oh geez'.
"When I looked up and he dashed away it was going to be tough but then at the 150m I knew Attica was always going to pick him up.
"But for him to do that, the way he's won and the times that he's run, this early in his career, Joe's right, he's very, very exciting.''
Attica is the first foal of multiple Group winner Savatiano, who won over $2.3million with a long list of highlight wins. For those who remember the Street Cry (IRE) mare well, they will also recall she did win the 2021 Group I ATC Canterbury Stakes beating Mizzy, but then lost the race due to a positive swab so went to stud without her deserved G1 win on the resume.
Savatiano has a 2YO colt to follow by Palace Pier (GB) called Sabates and a yearling colt by I Am Invincible, but no foal this spring after missing to Extreme Choice.
Attica is the 14th Group I for the late champion sire Lonhro, whose high class six year-old son Lindermann cracked $4million in earnings earlier in the day when winning the Group III ATC Craven Plate.
