Happy Valentine will be on offer from Team Valor International as part of Arrowfield Stud’s consignment to the impending Magic Million Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale on June 1 in Queensland, Australia.
The 6-year-old should garner considerable international interest.
Gr1 winner Happy Valentine
Barry Irwin of Team Valor said “She won for us in France and ran second in England. We decided to send her to Australia in order to get an Animal Kingdom foal and we were lucky enough to get a filly that we will retain for racing. Knowing that we would want to sell her, we had her covered early by the commercially viable More Than Ready.”
Of special interest to South African breeders, More Than Ready is the sire of a young stallion on the tips of everybody’s lips at the moment in Gimmethegreenlight, the Gr1 Queen’s Plate winner that has made such a splash with his initial runners.
TVI’s Barry Irwin
Happy Valentine was a very precocious filly, winning on debut by 5½ lengths at Clairwood and coming back a month later to score a decisive triumph in the Gr1 Allan Robertson with subsequent Gr 1 winner Along Came Polly 3¼-lengths in her wake.
Irwin said “She has bright prospects as a broodmare. Each one of our partnerships has a different make-up and the folks in this one bought her to race. Only a few of them are interested in breeding. Hence the sale to dissolve the partnership.”
Happy Valentine is by leading South African sire Silvano from a family loaded with black-type runners on her sales catalogue page.
She is among two Graded winners foaled by the National Assembly mare Happy Ever After, the other one being Happy Forever, a 6-time winner and best in the Gr2 Senor Santa Handicap with placings in the Gr1 Cape Flying Championship and Golden Horse Casino Sprint.
Second dam Happy Heiress, an 8-time winner, won a pair of stakes including the Gr2 Southern Cross and also placed in a Gr1, namely the Cape Flying Championship.
Two of her daughters became stakes winners. Her daughter Happy Harriet counted the Gr3 Strelitzia among a trioika of black-type wins and she also placed in a Gr1, when third in the Allan Robertson Championship.
Happy Valentine – magnificent specimen
Another daughter Happy Land was a Listed winner and has produced the Silvano filly Happy Spirit, which won the Gr2 SA Oaks and placed in the Gr1 Woolavington.
Happy Valentine’s family lacks no appeal Down Under, as the third dam was a half-sister to Group 1 AJC Australian Derby hero Taras Bulba.
She produced the Grade 2 Breeders Stakes winner in New Zealand and a daughter foaled the remarkable $3-million earner Starcraft, best in the Gr1 Australian Derby and then sent to Europe, where he accounted for the Gr1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Newmarket in England, the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot and the Gr1 Prix du Moulin at Longchamp.
