Con Te Partiro Emerges from Retirement for Group 1 Win

A bold decision to bring 2017 Sandringham Handicap winner Con Te Partiro out of retirement after she failed to get in foal during last year's Southern Hemisphere breeding season in Australia paid off handsomely March 14 when she landed the Coolmore Classic (G1) at Rosehill.

The 6-year-old mare is trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott for Newgate Farm and SF Bloodstock. The owners paid $575,000 for her in 2018 at The November Sale, Fasig-Tipton's breeding stock sale.

She had previously been trained by Wesley Ward for Hat Creek Racing, for whom she won the Sandringham, ran third in the Arlington Matron Stakes (G3T), and was a close fourth in the Del Mar Oaks (G1T).

After being purchased by her current Australian connections, she took the Arrowfield Dark Jewel Classic (G3) at Scone last year before her short-lived retirement to paddocks and a cover by Zoustar.

"She was retired. She'd gone to stud,'' Bott told the Australian Daily Telegraph. "Gai and I were disappointed because we were hoping for another season with this mare as we felt she had so much more to give as a racehorse.

"I could understand why they sent her to stud as they had to make a commercial decision. But when she didn't get in foal, we asked the owners to consider putting her back into work.

"We got another opportunity with the mare, and this is the result. It's a great story.''

Plans now call for Con Te Partiro to contest either the Doncaster Mile (G1) at Randwick next month or the Coolmore Legacy Stakes (G1) against her own sex at the same track seven days later.

Con Te Partiro is the 31st top-level winner for the late influential Ashford Stud resident Scat Daddy, who died of a heart attack at 11 in December 2015. Con Te Partiro is his second new grade 1 winner in the space of a week after the 5-year-old Combatant scored in the March 7 Santa Anita Handicap (G1).

Con Te Partiro was bred by Daniel Kessler and Cathy Cordes under the KC Garrett Farm banner. The mare, originally a $130,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase by Cromwell Bloodstock, is out of Humana Distaff Stakes (G1) runner-up Temple Street, a daughter of Street Cry, and is thus bred on the same cross as Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1) winner Skitter Scatter.

Con Te Partiro's victory under Tim Clark came at the expense of runner-up Miss Fabulass, a Southern Hemisphere-bred daughter of Frankel and the brilliant race mare Samantha Miss representing Strawberry Hill Stud.

Prague Turns Heads in Pago Pago

Fresh from winning on his final British ride at Kempton on Wednesday before heading for his latest stint in Australia, Tom Marquand landed the Pago Pago Stakes (G3) on the Ciaron Maher/David Eustace-trained Prague on Rosehill's Saturday card.

Prague, who stayed on well to win by 1 1/2 lengths, secured a spot in the March 21 Golden Slipper Stakes (G1).

Marquand told racing.com: "Clearly, he has got an exceptional amount of ability. He has still got untapped potential in the way he went through the last couple of furlongs, and he's still not quite finished.

"He's a lovely, big horse, and he's not done an awful lot of racing, so there is no reason why he shouldn't handle backing up in the Golden Slipper."