Leading South African owner-breeder Mary Slack enjoyed her biggest win in the UK to date when her Fastnet Rock filly Diamond Fields powered home to win the €60000 Gr3 Gladness Stakes at Naas in Ireland on Sunday.
Mary Slack – thrilling win
Purchased for €55 000 by Cape Town-based Form Bloodstock at the 2014 Goffs Yearling Sale, the 4yo was ridden in the 1400m turf race by jockey Chris Hayes for trainer Fozzy Stack.
“I gave her a terrible ride, but I had a willing partner,” Hayes told Racing Post.
“It was a funny race and more of a 3 1/2-furlong sprint and she is tough and genuine.”
Jehan Malherbe – bought the winner
The Racing Post reported that Stack, who has enjoyed a flying start to his new post after the retirement of his father Tommy, added, “She ran well at Belmont on her last start behind a very smart filly, and probably didn’t just get the nine furlongs that day. She’s smart and may comeback here for the Gr3 Athasi, and then maybe Ascot, although there is another race back in New York around that time so we’ll have to see where we go. I’m very pleased for the owner Mary Slack. It’s the biggest winner she has had in Ireland or England. She is a good supporter of the yard and has a stud farm down in South Africa, so I’m sure she will breed off her at some stage.”
Bred by Sweetmans Bloodstock, the winner is the first foal of Question Times, who showed talent as a juvenile for Peter Chapple-Hyam and was second in the Listed Bosra Sham Fillies’ Stakes. She is a half-sister to another from that stable in Sunday Times (GB) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}), who won the Gr3 Sceptre Stakes over this trip and was second in the Gr1 Cheveley Park Stakes and whose dam was a half to three black-type performers headed by the Gr2 Hungerford Stakes winner and dual Gr1 Prix de la Foret runner-up Welsh Emperor (Ire) (Emperor Jones).
The dam has a 2-year-old colt by Camelot (GB) named Latrobe (Ire) and a yearling filly also by that sire.
