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Few wins would give father and son training team Leon and Troy Corstens as much pleasure as seeing their filly Thrillster take out the Listed Atlantic Jewel Stakes at Moonee Valley on September 8.
Thrillster (Starspangledbanner x Heart Of Thrills by Show A Heart) provided her sire Starspangledbanner with his ninth stakes winner and completed a stakes double for the Coolmore stallion after his import Home Of The Brave (Starspangledbanner x Blissful Beat by Beat Hollow) won the G2 Theo Marks Stakes at Rosehill.
The Corstens have a close affinity with Starspangledbanner, having trained him to Group One success before watching him endure much-publicised fertility issues after he went to stud in 2011.Naturally they were delighted that he doubled his number of Australian stake wins in the space of an hour and also relieved to see Thrillster win after their team had been affected by a virus.
"We've had a bit of a bad run over the last six months," Troy Corstens said. "We haven't kept it a secret but we've had a bug go through the stable with temperatures popping up here and there."The connection between the Corstens, Starspangledbanner and Home Of The Brave runs deeper than genetics.
Home Of The Brave, one of only 33 foals from Starspangledbanner's first Northern Hemisphere crop, was originally purchased as yearling by Troy Corstens and agent Justin Bahen for 80,000 euros at the 2013 Arqana Deauville Yearling Sale in France."We raced him with a group of Australian owners with Hugo Palmer in England. We were always thinking of bringing him here but then Hugo did a deal with Godolphin and we sold him to them in 2016," Corstens said.
Home Of The Brave, now racing in Australia under the care of Godolphin trainer James Cummings, is out of the unraced Blissful Beat, dam of one other winner from her three foals to race.
Their dam Pleasuring (Good Times) is a half-sister to the G3 winner and noted broodmare Bay Street (Grundy), who has produced 13 winners including five stakes winners.
Starspangledbanner, whose previous Australian stakes winner was the unbeaten 2YO Of The Brave, stands with his sire Choisir (Danehill Dancer) at Coolmore Australia.Thrillster was bred and raised at Victoria’s Rosemont Stud.
Her dam Heart Of Thrills is a grand-daughter of the NZ-bred G2 and G3 winner Soleil Rouge (Red Tempo) from a family of Hong Kong G1 winner All Thrills Too (St Covet), Sydney G3 winner Swear (Redoute’s Choice) and the outstanding NZ filly Crossyourheart (Show A Heart).
