Photo: Kenton Wright (Race Images)
Midnight Edition became his sire Wrote’s most recent Group winner when successful in the G3 Concorde Stakes (1200m) at Pukekohe on Saturday.
The four-year-old gelding is Wrote’s second Group winner this season, joining Fast Network, who won the G3 National Day Cup (1000m) in Hong Kong in October.
A consistent performer, the Bruce Wallbank-trained Midnight Edition has now won five of his 17 starts and boasts three Group placings, including a second in last year’s G2 Auckland Guineas (1400m), which he initially dead-heated for first before being relegated.
Ridden on Saturday by Matthew Cameron, Midnight Edition was dominant. The pair took the lead and dictated terms throughout, holding off a fast-finishing Master Fay and Tardelli to win by just under a length.
Bred by Aston Racing Ltd from the Wallbank family’s racemare Midnight Gossip—who won two of her six starts and finished fourth in the 2016 G1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m)—Midnight Edition is a younger sibling to the well-performed Midnight Mass and Midnight Scandal.
Wallbank has set his sights on an open handicap over 1200m at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day as Midnight Edition’s next target, with a step up to 1600m also on the horizon.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Fast Network has the unenviable task of attempting to turn the tables on rival Ka Ying Rising, who is aiming for 16 wins in a row, in Sunday’s HK$28 million G1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint (1200m) at Sha Tin.
The five-year-old gelding finished second to the Hong Kong sprinting sensation the G2 BOCHK Private Banking Jockey Club Sprint (1200m) last start.
A G1 juvenile-winning son of High Chaparral, Wrote has now sired 117 winners, six at black-type level, including Group One winner Pulchritudinous.
From Pukekohe to Sha Tin, the performances of Midnight Edition and Fast Network are the latest shining exemplars of Wrote, a sire who continues to build momentum on the international stage.
He stands at Highview for a fee of $12,000 + GST.
View the field for Sunday's G1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint here.
