MAGNUS MIS LAUNCHES CAREER

First season sire, Magnus, has kicked off his stud career in memorable fashion with Imprimis running a memorable half length second in the Listed $100,000 Herald Sun SuperRacing Stakes (1000m) at Flemington yesterday.

Imprimis led for most of the journey but found the highly vaunted Cambiaso a tad too strong on the wire. Connections have already declared the winner to be a leading hope for next year’s Blue Diamond and, naturally enough, trainer Mick Cerchi was very pleased with the performance of Imprimis and clearly harbours further stakes aspirations for his $55,000 weanling purchase.

Imprimis (pictured above on the rails) has certainly been built for speed: her sire Magnus was a Group One winning sprinter who campaigned on three continents AND is a half brother to the dam of world champion Black Caviar, while Imprimis’ dam, Tendency, is by one of the most precocious influences of recent times in Rory’s Jester.

But as impressive as Imprimis was, also keep in mind the performance of Magnusificent, who appears to have the ability to live up to his name.

And, while Magnusificent’s finishing position doesn’t reveal much – the race replay certainly did.

Seemingly a spent force with 200m to go and at the very rear of the field, jockey Craig Williams peeled Magnusificent around the other runners and the colt flew home to finish just over three lengths off the winner.

It appears that racegoers will again be taking heed of Magnus’ name in the formguide!

Photo by Bruno Cannatelli