Messara's Profondo, Hitotsu Head Australian Guineas

Arrowfield Stud's renowned faith in Japanese stallions is well poised to bear more spectacular fruit at Flemington, with star 3-year-olds Profondo and Hitotsu heading the market for the March 5 AUS$1 million Australian Guineas (G1).

While John Messara had previously entertained thoughts of sweeping the country's peculiar dual Guineas day, the fact Sydney's rain forced Profondo's switch from the Randwick Guineas (G1) to meet Hitotsu in Melbourne has left the stud's supremo with a different dream for the Arrowfield-bred colts.

"I think I'd rather win two Guineas, but we'll put up with a quinella in one of them if we're forced to," Messara said with a smile.

"I’m thrilled with how things are shaping up. It wasn't meant to happen of course—I had visions of breeding both Guineas winners, and now there can only be one. They may fight it out, but of course there are plenty of other talented horses in the field, but Profondo and Hitotsu do appear on past form to have the edge."

With both colts resuming from spells in the 1,600-meter group 1, most markets on Friday had the Richard Litt-trained Profondo marginally ahead for his first anti-clockwise contest, at around AUS$4.80 to Hitotsu's AUS$5.00.

A son of the late, great Deep Impact  out of the group 3-winning Redoute's Choice  mare Honesty Prevails who was bred to southern hemisphere time, Profondo topped the 2020 Magic Millions Yearling Sale when sold for AUS$1.9 million (US$1,304,582) by Arrowfield to Ottavia Galletta.

Given time to develop, Profondo won a Kensington maiden on debut last September and ran a narrow second in the Acy Securities Gloaming Stakes (G3) before his stunning two-length victory in Randwick's Moet & Chandon Spring Champion Stakes (G1) in October. The powerfully-built colt tuned up for today with an 1,175-meter barrier trial win at Warwick Farm on Feb. 28.

By contrast Hitotsu, from the first southern hemisphere-bred crop of six-time elite-level-winning shuttler Maurice  and bred by Arrowfield along with partners, including former radio host Alan Jones' Belford Productions, was a AUS$100,000 (US$68,663) purchase at the same Gold Coast sale, by Cranbourne trainer Wendy Kelly.

Out of another Redoute's Choice mare in the unraced Love Is Fickle, Hitotsu had three unplaced runs for Kelly, all at group level, before a transfer to Ciaron Maher and David Eustace. Then came a spring blossoming, one which famously comprised a Donald maiden win, a fifth in the Neds Caulfield Guineas (G1), and his explosive Penfolds Victoria Derby (G1) success. He had one barrier trial before this preparation, when fifth of seven over 990 meters at Casterton almost a month ago on Feb. 7, a contest won by one of his chief rivals in the Australian Guineas, Forgot You.

Aside from Hitotsu, Maurice has two other Australian Guineas starters in Bjorn Baker's Maurice's Medad and the Julius Sandhu-trained Sharp Response.

Maurice was shown in the fact that while the 11-year-old was unable to shuttle from Arrowfield's associates, the Shadai Stallion Station, for the 2020 season due to the pandemic, he returned last year to cover the largest of his four Hunter Valley books to date, at 156 mares.

"We could’ve covered 250 mares if we'd wanted to, but we had an agreement with the owners of the horse, the Yoshida family, for 150," Messara said. "We rang them with a week or two to go and said 'can we take another five or six please?'"

Messara, who has shuttled other sires from Japan, including group 1 winner Admire Mars and three other sons of Deep Impact in Real Steel, Real Impact , and Mikki Isle, believes his breeding operation is successfully refining which of the country's leading stallions will make their mark in Australia.

"We are thrilled with how the Japanese stallions are going," he said. "We've been at it for more than 20 years with our Japanese partners, and we've experimented with a number of horses. They don't all work, obviously, just like not all European horses work here and few of the American horses do. But we think we've zeroed-in now on the sort of Japanese horses that seem to work down here.

"They’re tough horses. Generally, if you get one that's produced several significant wins, it's probably an outstanding animal, and would be competitive and perhaps even superior in most parts of the world. That's been supported by Japanese horses winning important races in various parts of the world, including here.

"Plus the Japanese horses here in Australia often represent a complete outcross, which is very handy when you've got a band dominated so much by Danehill and Danzig."

Maurice currently sits second on the Australian second season sires' list, with 26 winners from 54 runners.

"Maurice was a racehorse with a tremendous cardio-vascular system," Messara said of the son of Screen Hero .

"You assume he had to have it by the way he raced, but he did have it. At the time, with their heart monitors and everything else, they could tell just what a good motor he had. If he passes that on to his progeny, we're going to get some outstanding animals.

"Hitotsu might be one of those. What he did in the Derby was amazing. That last sectional running about the same time as they did in the open sprints that day, that's pretty hard to believe, for a 4-year-old at the end of 2,500 meters."