Superbly bred Gai Waterhouse filly Rex Is A Star lived up to her royal bloodlines on Wednesday afternoon with an impressive resuming win at Canterbury.
The diminutive chestnut looked in trouble at the stop of the straight before impressively weaving a passage up the fence to forge victory in the two-year-old maiden for fillies over 1100m.
Prettyfamous held on for second after hitting the lead 200m from home with Rekindled Glory finishing strongly into third.
But they were all playing second fiddle to the daughter of Encosta De Lago. Her mother Sliding Cube is a half sister to Redoute's Choice.
That makes Rex Is A Star a three-quarter sister to 2009 Group 1 Sires Produce Stakes (1400m) winner Manhattan Rain, who was also trained by Waterhouse.
“The fillies from this family we've had a bit to do with, and a couple of the colts,” stable representative Mark Newnham said.
“The fillies have all been on the smaller side and the colts have all been giants so she's very typical of the family.
“All the fillies have been able to run and she's no different to them.”
Apprentice Adam Hyeronimus rode the filly with his 2kg claim, offsetting the 58kg top weight the horse was slugged with by the handicapper after her second placing to Chris Waller's Catkins on debut in January.
She was very slow to begin from the inside and settled fourth last but Hyeronimus was patient, and when his opportunity came he pounced.
“First start that was the worry, she was fairly slow into stride and today she was too, she took a good while to muster speed,” Hyeronimus said.
“She travelled nice and I just had to wait for the runs and when they come she let down beautifully.
“It was a bit worrying there for a bit. She's got a lot of heart and she goes good, hopefully she can go on with it.”
Rex Is A Star was one of just two Waterhouse runners saddled up at Canterbury on Wednesday. Her other runner Dormello ran fifth in the two-year-old maiden which opened the program.
It was Waterhouse's first city winner since Reuben Percival saluted in the Winter Cup (2400m) on June 2.
