LUNAR FLARE AIMS TO EMULATE FAMOUS DAD FIORENTE

Lunar Flare’s golden ticket into the Melbourne Cup by winning the Group 3 Bart Cummings (2500m) at Flemington last Saturday was a big boost for both trainer Grahame Begg and Widden Stud stallion Fiorente.

It will be Begg’s first runner in the 3200m race, while the seven-year-old mare’s victory also gives Fiorente, the 2013 Melbourne Cup winner, more prominence in the middle of the breeding season.

Begg described the Victorian bred Lunar Flare as the gift that keeps on giving.

“Every year she comes up good and she came off a very low base as far as we are concerned when we first got her to train,” he said.

“She was getting beaten at Benalla and those sorts of places in 64 grade. I took her to Ballarat for her first start for me and she got beaten there in an unsuitable distance.

“But as soon as we stepped her up to a middle distance, she has been very consistent over the past two years.”

Begg believes Lunar Flare is only doing now what she was probably expected to do because she is fully mature.

He said Fiorente had been a fine sire and just keeps chipping away and people had to be patient with the stallion’s progeny.

“He certainly chips away,” Begg said.

“People just don’t want to wait and give them the opportunity and that’s the problem.”

Begg said Lunar Flare was the only horse in his stable by Fiorente but he wouldn’t mind a couple more.

Joe Valmorbida, who operates as Mojo Thoroughbreds in Victoria, bred Lunar Flare.

Begg said Valmorbida had the unraced Lunar Flare’s dam My Fair Lago (Encosta De Lago x Sunflower).

“He has had the whole family,” Begg said.

Valmorbida has either individually or breed in partnership 11 foals from My Fair Lago that have raced. Only one didn’t win, while the best performed was Field Of Lights (Bianconi) and Mercury Seven (Tayusa Tsuyoshi), both with five wins, and nine-time winner Spirit of Lager (Bel Esprit).

Widden Stud’s Phil Marshall said the mare just keeps coming up time after time which is demonstrated in her prizemoney of $1.4m.

“She has been an elite performer for quite some time now and probably for whatever reason kept going under the radar,” he said.

“She has got a lot of quality and is certainly very tough.

“And she has won over a million dollars and has kind of done it without much fanfare and it’s a testament to Grahame Begg and his team down there.

“Grahame is a fantastic trainer and we saw him win a Blue Diamond not that long ago with Written By but he can also do it with stayers too and it takes a top level trainer to be able to work at both ends of the spectrum.”

After covering 70 mares last season, Marshall said Fiorente continues to be well supported this year.

“He is a horse that breeders continue to support,” Marshall said.

“And he is a horse that everyone remembers from his magnificent Melbourne Cup win, and being by Monsun is a nice outcross for the majority of mares in Australia.

“I know that trainers like training them because they are very easy, they are very straight forward and they have all got massive hearts. They all try.

“So he ticks a lot of boxes for breeders looking for a racehorse.

“It sort of allows people to race and breed to sell.”

Marshall said he was also impressed with the Rob Blacker-trained three-year-old Skyphios (Spleasure) which is a Flemington winner over 1800m.

He said Skyphios, which has raced only four times, is a horse to look out for during the spring because he believes he could be top class.

Marshall said Fiorente was a match made in heaven for anyone looking to breed a 1600m-plus horse.

He said the stallion was never a dour stayer by any means and he was always marketed as the fast stayer.

“He was a dominant horse over 1800m to 2000m and he was good enough to run third in an All Aged over 1400m in the Group 1 up in Sydney,” Marshall said.

“He was a horse that certainly didn’t lack tactical speed and had a tremendous turn of foot.”

And Marshall said that Fiorente doesn’t just produce stayers and is ideal for breeders looking for a Guineas horse, all the way up to a Derby and Cup horse which makes him a perfect stallion.

With Lunar Flare drawing more attention to Fiorente, Marshall believes the stallion’s broodmare numbers could be a few more than last season.

“A young horse like Skyphios will help too,” he said.

“And he is getting a boat load of winners around the city and provincial tracks. He is just a horse you can set your watch by and there are not too many days where he hasn’t had a winner.”

Marshall said Fiorente represented great value for money not only for his quality but his pedigree and race performances.

“He would definitely represent some of the best value in Victoria,’’ he said.

Marshall said it was shaping up to be an extremely busy season at Widden’s Victorian Stud.

He said about 1100 mares would be covered.

“It’s just really ramping up now,” he said.

“We find the end of September and the first couple of weeks of October are always the busiest times when the stallions are covering two to three mares a day.

“It’s all hands on deck and it’s onwards and upwards.”

Marshall said that across the board the numbers had been very good with the stud’s 10 stallions and the majority would cover more than 100 mares.

He said Gold Standard (Sebring x Coniston Gem) had been incredibly popular after siring Group 1 winner Sheeza Belter from his first crop.

And Nicconi (Bianconi x Nicola Lass), the sire of the world’s best sprinter Nature Strip, is again on track to cover more than 100 mares.

“He has got fantastic fertility and great libido and can cope with those numbers without a doubt.”