Epaulette Adds To Growing Reputation

Promising filly Tropezina added the growing reputation of her sire Epaulette when she recorded her third win from five starts at Flemington on Saturday.

The 3YO proved too strong for her rivals in the $250,000 Inglis Dash, taking her earnings to more than $227,000 prizemoney.

Tropezina cost just $65,000 when bought at the Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale by James Bester and Stuart Webb from the Monarch Stud draft.

Epaulette is enjoying a surge of winners including promising Gosford Guineas winner Military Zone, also a Premier Yearling Sale graduate.

With his first crop now 3YOs Epaulette is also the sire the Australian bred Soqrat, a dual G1 winner in South Africa, and the black type winning fillies Khulaasa and Meryl.

The son of Commands was a dual G1 winner in a racing career that also included a G3 win and a further two G1 placings.

Trained at Caulfield by Henry Dwyer, Tropezina has won three on end and, according to stable rep Maree McEwan, will next step out in the G3 Kevin Hayes Stakes over 1200m at her home track on February 9.

Monarch Stud’s Kieran Falvey sold Tropezina on behalf of breeder Barry Pearce.

Based at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley since 1996, Monarch Stud’s graduates have included G1 winners Shot of Thunder, Blue Murder, Lucky Hussler, Hong Kong champion Jeune King Prawn, Vega Magic and Trap For Fools.

Monarch Stud has also sold yearlings for up to $875,000 and will offer Tropezina’s half-brother, by Kermadec from the Ad Valorem mare Boredom, at the Australian Easter Yearling Sale in Sydney.

Boredom is a three-time winning half-sister to G1 Spring Champion Stakes winner Complacent and the Sydney stakes winner Ataraxia and ws purchased by Pearce for just $19,000 at the 2012 Melbourne Select Racehorse Sale.

Boredom’s first foal Frankiedee (Bernardini) is a winner. Tropezina is the mare’s second foal and and she also has produced an Artie Schiller foal last October. She is back in foal to Kermadec.

• The 5YO mare Belwazi became the 26th stakes winner for her sire Bel Esprit when she won the Listed Kensington Stakes at Flemington.

A homebred for Victorian breeders Graeme and Barbara Gathercole, Belwazi (Bel Esprit x Nkwazi by Rory’s Jester) proved too strong for Sydney trained sprinters Glenall and Champagne Cuddles.

It was Belwazi’s first tilt at black type level but the Bel Esprit mare had previously won six races from 17 starts for Mornington trainer Jerome Hunter.

Hunter trains privately for the Gathercoles who currently have about 14 in work on a 10 acre complex opposite Mornington racecourse supported by their nearby 400 acre state-of-the-art spelling and breeding complex named Graebar Park.

Hunter was a public trainer for 10 years then stepped away from the game for five years before being approached by the Gathercoles to become their private trainer in 2013.

“We’re heading towards 20 in work with some 25 broodmares and a wide range of weanlings, yearlings and breakers coming through,” Hunter said.

Hunter’s involvement with Belwazi’s pedigree dates back further than that of her breeder/owner.

“I trained both Belwazi’s dam Nkwazi and her half sister Ocean Bridge,” Hunter said.

Ocean Bridge was sold to Patinack Farm and would go on to produce G2 winner Longport and 2YO stakes winner Run For Wilson.

Belwazi is Nkwazi’s seventh and penultimate foal. She produced one more foal before she died in 2017.

The Gathercoles have a full sister to Belwazi by Bel Esprit named Nkwazi’s Daughter.

Bel Esprit, sire of the unbeaten champion Black Caviar, continues to be one of Australia’s most prolific stallions.

The G1 winning son of Royal Academy equalled the Australian record for the most individual winners in a season (155 in 2012/13) and despite his advancing age covered 95 mares last spring.

He is the sire of more than 660 winners of $66 million and added another black type success last Thursday when his good sprinter Tactical Advantage won the Listed Takeover Target Stakes at Gosford.