Juste Momente Scores Shock Group One Victory
30th March 2008
Talented grey mare Juste Moment (4m Giant's Causeway x Skates, by Danehill) scored a major upset at Morphettville on Saturday when she swooped from the clouds to take the Group One SAJC Robert Sangster Stakes with hot favourite Miss Andretti finishing out of a place.Resuming from a spell of 19 weeks, Juste Momente unleashed a sizzling finish to reel in the leaders and score by a neck over Zipanese and Serious Speed with Miss Andretti fading for fourth.
Already a stakes-winner having captured a Listed race at Flemington during the spring, Juste Momente increased her future stud value immeasurably in winning a Group One event for her lucky owners who include trainer Danny O’Brien and Widden Stud.
Juste Moment boasts the overall record of six wins and four placings from 19 starts with earnings of $540,125.
A $300,000 purchase for Danny O’Brien from the Coolmore draft at the 2005 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, Juste Momente (pictured as a yearling at Coolmore) is by Giant’s Causeway from the Danehill mare Skates.
One of 39 stakes-winners worldwide for Giant’s Causeway, Juste Moment is his ninth Group One winner and the first to win at the highest level for him in Australia.
An outstanding sire in the Northern Hemisphere where he stands on the Coolmore roster at Ashford Stud in Kentucky for $US125,000, Giant’s Causeway has four yearlings catalogued for the upcoming Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale including half-brothers to Fastnet Rock and Langoustine as well as the first foal of three-time Group One winning mare Shamekha.
Juste Momente is the third foal and first stakes-winner for her dam Skates, who is a stakes-placed three-quarter sister to last season’s top juvenile Murtajill and Magic Millions winner and promising young sire Bradbury’s Luck.
Juste Momente’s grand-dam Skating was the champion sprinting filly of her time with wins in the Group One AJC Doncaster Handicap and STC Coolmore Classic and has proven just as successful at stud in leaving six stakes horses.
Coolmore will offer a half-brother by Encosta de Lago to Juste Moment at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale as Lot 373.
