3 minute read
A look at how this weekend’s two 3YO sprinting features stack up against each other.
The list of Up And Coming Stakes winners for a short period earlier this century reads like an Australian Champion Stallion honour roll.
The winners from 2003 to 2005 were Exceed And Excel, Fastnet Rock and Snitzel, who shared seven of the nine Australian leading sire titles from 2012 to 2020.
A few years earlier, Testa Rossa and General Nediym, themselves outstanding sires, also won the Up And Coming Stakes.
But that was a time when the spring three-year-old program differed greatly from what it is now.
The Golden Rose did not exist, nor did the Coolmore Stud Stakes and all roads led to the 1600m Caulfield Guineas for anyone with a colt wanting to tackle a Group 1.
Now, the 1300-metre Up And Coming Stakes is run on the same day as another long-time early-season Group 3 Sydney three-year-old feature, the San Domenico Stakes (1100m).
Testa Rossa and General Nediym won both races when they were run a fortnight apart while Exceed And Excel, Fastnet Rock and Snitzel were all beaten in the San Domenico before winning the Up And Coming Stakes.
These days the San Domenico Stakes is more likely to throw a Group 1 winner and, by extension, a stallion.
Post the Equine Influenza year of 2007, when the San Domenico was run but the Up And Coming was cancelled, 13 of the 15 San Domenico Stakes have been won by males horses, 12 of them colts.
Among them are Group 1 winners Duporth, Foxwedge, Exceedance and In The Congo, Group 1-producer Star Turn, and young stallions Pariah, Graff and Anders.
The lone gelding to win the San Domenico in the past 15 years was Japonisme, who won the Coolmore Stud Stakes later in the campaign.
The past 15 Up And Coming winners are male, nine of them colts with geldings Manawanui and Divine Prophet the only subsequent Group 1 winners.
Giga Kick's sire Scissor Kick is the lone Group 1-producer on the Up And Coming honour roll in that time.
Ratings-wise, the San Domenico has also proven a superior event in the past 15 years. The highest-rating Timeform Up An Coming winner since 2008 was Dreamscape (116), ahead of Manawanui and North Pacific (115) with only four others going at least 110.
Anders and Exceedance won the San Domenico in 119, while Pariah (118), Snitzerland, Graff (both 117) and Star Turn (116) all ran to at least 116 with only three winners going sub-110.
The San Domenico Stakes is well-placed to maintain that superiority this year with Barber, Libertad (both 110-raters), Corniche, The Instructor (both 109) and Introducing (105) all holding peak ratings at least equal to that of the highest-rated Up And Coming runner, Café Millenium (105+).
