3 minute read
The Daniel Morton-trained Elite Street lands Winterbottom Stakes at Ascot
The Daniel Morton-trained Elite Street (4 g ex Elite Ateates by Exceed And Excel) continued a good day for Darley stallions when he produced a shock victory in the Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at Ascot and in the process handed shuttler Street Boss (Street Cry) with his his sixth Group 1 winner and 42nd stakes winner.
The four-year-old gelding was having his first start in stakes company and he flew home to beat Celebrity Queen (Redoute’s Choice) by a quarter of a length, while evergreen 11-year-old Rock Magic (Redoute’s Choice) was another length away in third.
“It’s pretty special,” Dan Morton said.
“I’m trying not to bawl. Super proud of all my staff, they’ve done a super job coming into the carnival and the team's going beautiful.
“We sort of knew where we were at. In any other year we probably don’t gain a start in the race, so we were lucky to take our place, but he was a horse I thought had the ammo to do it.
“Brad [Rawiller] rode him perfect. He landed three-deep with cover and coming to the corner I thought ‘geez it’s going to take a good one to get past him’.”
The gelding is out of the five time-winning Exceed And Excel (Danehill) mare Elite Ateates, who is herself a daughter of multiple Group 2 scorer Ateates (Zeditave).
Ateates is out of Group 3 scorer Paris Miss (Opera Prince) and she is also the dam of 1997 Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Ruffles (Zeditave) and further back this is the same family as Group 3 winner True Glo (Brief Truce) and Listed scorer Notonyourlife (Sebring).
With the gelding being out of an Exceed And Excel mare it means Elite Street is bred on the same cross as last season’s Blue Diamond Prelude (c&g) (Gr 3, 1000m) and Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) runner-up Hanseatic and fellow Group 3-winning pair Petitis Filous and Tris.
Street Boss stands at Darley’s Northwood Park base for a fee of $27,500 (inc GST) and he has one lot catalogued at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling.
