Hometown hero Writer didn’t need any guidance from jockey Adrian Coome to find the winner’s stall at the track after winning the $100,000 Rockhampton Cup (1600m) on Saturday as he has visited it so often. Through his career this aptly named son of Hemingway (IRE) (Bullarook Park, Avenel, Victoria), has had 23 of his 36 starts at this busy Queensland city’s course and recorded 13 of 14 wins on it. The exception was his victory at his debut start at nearby Yeppoon.
Third in last year’s Cup, Writer is trained at Rockhampton by David Stafford for Mrs L.E. Wedmaier, the breeder in partnership with family members of Writer. He was inside his dam Stint when she was purchased for $4,000 at the Inglis June sales.
Stint has had nine foals for three other winners, including Writer’s sister Lady Hemingway (2004; 25 starts, won maiden Ipswich) and half-brother Abra (2000; eight wins South Australia country, Alice Springs, Darwin).
Raced only once, Stint is an Australian bred half-sister by shuttled Night Shift to Maroc (Don’t Say Halo Adelaide Listed winner Maroc) and Mallet (Brief Truce winner of seven Brisbane races and stakes placed).They are from Majalh, a Kaoru Star Adelaide winning half-sister to Speeding Fine, a sire who supplied smart horses from use in the Rockhampton district in the 1990s.
Winner of his only two starts, both at two and including a Listed stakes victory in England, Writer’s sire Hemingway has had the good strike success as a sire of 81 winners and 11 placed from 123 runners. They have included Status Symbol (3 wins, Listed winner Flemington), Cuban Girl (5 Adelaide, 3 Stakes places), Belleza Veloz (5 wins, 2 Moonee Valley), Tube (6 wins, third Cranbourne Cup) and numerous other metropolitan winners.
Hemingway is by former Yarraman Park Stud, Scone shuttler Spectrum (by Rainbow Quest), a sire who is also the maternal grandsire of Moonlight Cloud, the mare who shocked the world on Saturday when she stormed to within a head of beating seemingly unconquerable Black Caviar in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.
A Group 1 winner earlier in France, Moonlight Cloud is by another sire who shuttled to Australia, Invincible Spirit. Currently one of the sires at Yarraman Park, is Invincible Spirit’s his Australian bred good sprinting son I Am Invincible. He could get good results from Spectrum mares.
