Don Hunter, the highest priced lot at $140,000 at last year’s Sydney sale, proved a cut above his rivals in the Listed $100,000 APG 2YO Final at Menangle on Saturday night.
Working to the front at the end of the opening quarter in 27.3 seconds, the Huntsville colt gained a breather in the second section before booming home the final two fractions in 28.7 and 26.4 to win by 9.1 metres.
His time for the flying mile was a new lifetime mark of 1:53.4.
The colt is the first winner of the Australian Pacing Gold series ever to be brought out by Forbes breeders Phillip and Denise Thurston, of Celestial Standardbreds.
“We’ve run a few placings but he is our first APG winner. It is very exciting,” Phil said.
“Breeding can be a tough game and you certainly need moments like that on Saturday night to keep you inspired.
“He was always a special colt. He’s a very relaxed colt. I think that’s what will make him a topline horse in the future.”
Don Hunter has now won four of his five outings for $94,440 in stakes for owner Tony Licastro and friends and champion trainer-driver Luke McCarthy. Earlier in the season he captured the Listed $30,600 NSW Sapling Stakes and the $30,600 Bathurst Gold Crown Consolation.
The Thurston couple also bred Lochinvar Jazz, who finished at the back of the pack in the APG final.
“They were both really nice colts and they had great temperaments and were good sized. Both ticked all the boxes,” Phil said.
Another of their breed, the handy trotting mare Your Majesty, saluted earlier on the same card.
“We are very pleased with the one’s we’ve bred over the last four of five years. We’ve had a lot of success,” he said.
The Thurston’s purchased Don Hunter’s dam Miss Halfpenny quite by chance.
“I rang her trainer Paul Fitzpatrick to enquire if she was for sale. He said she was for sale but had been sold to America,” he related.
“However, the paperwork had not been done and the owners didn’t want her to go to America. I told them that we’d match the price and so we purchased her.”
Miss Halfpenny won 10 races including the Group 1 NSW Breeders Challenge 2YO Final and $235,403 and was a top racemare in her own right.
Her first foal is A Buck Ten (by Bettor’s Delight), who has won three races so far and was a finalist in the NSW Breeders Challenge and Bathurst Gold Crown at two.
“He’s got loads of ability,” Thurston said.
“We’ve got a yearling filly by Captaintreacherous out of her. She was broken in and I gave her one short preparation. She’s now back in work. She does everything right – the same as the two boys.
“She now has a surrogate mare carrying a Confederate foal.”
From APG Media
