Downs behind Wanted's Newmarket

The Courier Mail - Nathan Exelby - 10 March 2010

WANTED’S win in Saturday’s Newmarket Handicap again underlined the fertile nurturing ground of the Darling Downs, says breeder Ron Gilbert.

Wanted was bred by Gilbert and raised at his Highgrove Stud just outside Toowoomba before being sold for $800,000 at the 2008 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in Sydney.

He follows Blue Diamond winner Star Witness as a Darling Downs-bred Group 1 winner in Melbourne this autumn.

“It’s quite amazing the horses that come off this country up here,” Gilbert said.

“Darling Downs horses have won just about every major race in Australia, including four Melbourne Cups, four Caulfield Cups, four Doncasters, a Cox Plate and all of the major Queensland races multiple times.”

Highgrove Stud has a very high strike rate in producing stakes winners, but Wanted’s win broke a frustrating drought in Group 1 races for Gilbert, with Porto Roca’s 2001 Coolmore Classic the most recent G1 success.

“It’s very satisfying,” Gilbert said. “Fravashi was unlucky not to win a Group 1 when he got injured (in the T.J. Smith), so I know they are very hard to win.”

Wanted’s dam Fragmentation last year produced a full brother to the Newmarket winner and she is in foal to Street Cry, sire of Shocking and Whobegotyou. She is also the dam of Golden Slipper-bound Shrapnel.

Wanted will stand at Widden Stud on retirement and Gilbert has taken a share in him.

“Of all the top sprinters he has been the most consistent. He has a very fast cruising speed and he can sustain that, as he showed on Saturday when he came away from them again at the end,” he said.

Wanted after his win of the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap

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