21st Group One Winner for Royal Academy
17th October 2007
Royal Academy might be considered one of the senior statesmen on the Coolmore roster these days, but has still got what it takes as seen at Caulfield on Wednesday when Serious Speed (3f Royal Academy - Twitter, by Kendor) romped away to win the Group One MRC One Thousand Guineas.The lightly raced filly settled back in the field and unleashed a powerful late run to score her first Black Type win in emphatic style, racing clear to win by the best part of two and a half lengths.
“She’s a really tough filly,” said winning jockey Danny Nikolic.
“She’s still learning her trade and is very green but from the 600m you couldn’t have put enough on her, she was just jogging, and I thought to myself I’ll just wait till I get at least half way around the bend and she’ll kick good but she surprised me with the turn of foot she showed.
“The way she finished that race off I don’t think there would be too many problems with her getting up to 2000m, whether she goes onto an Oaks I don’t really know but gee she’s a nice filly.”
Bred under the Toorak Park Stud banner and retained to race by Harry Perks, Trevor Robertson and Rod Fairclough, Serious Speed put the writing on the wall last start with a fast finishing second in the Group Two VRC Edward Manifold Stakes.
The Leon McDonald trained filly was stakes-placed in Adelaide prior to coming to Melbourne and has come on in leaps and bounds to become the 21st Group One winner worldwide for Royal Academy.
Still in her first racing preparation, Serious Speed made her debut at Morphettville on August 8 finishing fifth in a field of 12.
She won her next two starts before tackling stakes company and now has the overall record of three wins and two placings from six starts with prizemoney of $397,530.
Serious Speed is the sixth living foal and first stakes-winner of the stakes-winning Kendor mare Twitter, winner of the Listed SAJC Nitshke Stakes and a daughter of stakes-winner Palace News, a half-sister to the dam of triple Group One winner March Hare.
20 year-old Royal Academy has been a regular visitor to Australia since his first shuttle trip in 1994 and has been particularly popular in recent years covering books of between 120 ad 150 mares for the last five years running.
