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VEGAS SHOWGIRL

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Shawy38 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 22 Jun 2021 at 3:40pm
Her sister Covent Garden is now with P. Moody
Goes around in R3 at Pakenham today.
Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing
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Shawy38 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Shawy38 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jun 2021 at 3:46pm

Vegas Showgirl progeny:

• Miss Atomb Bomb - Sold for $150,000. Finished last in a Gosford trial and never raced. Her foals have reached up to $750,000 - only one to race won a three-horse maiden at Pakenham;

• Winx - Sold for $230,000. 25-time G1 winner and four-time Cox Plate champion;

• Win Win Leader - Sold for $220,000. Transferred to Hong Kong but never raced;

• El Divino - Breeders retained. Won his first two starts and finished second to Brave Smash at The Valley. Was sadly put down after an accident in training in 2017;

• Boulder City - Sold for $2.3 million. Trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, the son of Snitzel never raced. Stands at Riverbank Farm stud for $5500;

• Courcheval - Breeders retained. Was trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace but never raced. In foal to Capitalist;

• Covent Garden - Breeders retained. Transferred to Peter Moody after five maiden runs;

• City Of Lights - Yearling filly by Japanese stallion Deep Impact. No trainer assigned yet; and

• I Am Invincible filly - Weanling.

Vegas Showgirl is currently in foal to Pride Of Dubai.

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Gay3 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Gay3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jun 2021 at 4:41pm
Easier to follow her progeny here than on P159 of the Winx thread Wink



Edited by Gay3 - 22 Jun 2021 at 4:44pm
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gonski gonski Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jul 2021 at 11:21pm
Covent Garden now retired. 3yo. Wow. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gay3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Jun 2023 at 6:08pm

Vegas risk pays off with City Of Lights

When blueblood filly City Of Lights (Deep Impact x Vegas Showgirl) saluted at Geelong on Sunday, it wasn't just the Winx fans that were cheering.

The result that produced Winx's half-sister was years in the planning and not without its risk, when breeder John Camilleri and bloodstock advisor Peter O'Brien sent their blue hen mare Vegas Showgirl on a flight to Japan to be served by superstar stallion Deep Impact.

"John Camilleri is a free thinker and has no constraints when it comes to breeding in his mind and always has an eye for overseas stallions and its location isn't an issue for him," O'Brien explained of the decision to mate the pair back in 2018.

"John thought Deep Impact was one of the best two stallions in the world with Galileo and he was getting older and you never know what can happen, you've got to make hay while the sun shines and John was desperate for her to go to him.

"We flew her to Japan and when she was pregnant after 80 or 90 days she flew back to Australia and foaled here and thankfully it all went to plan.

"She is a very laidback mare and we knew travel wasn't going to be an issue for her and we sent her with a mate just to be sure.

"She is a big mare Vegas Showgirl, so ideally she needs a small, neat stallion. Deep Impact was, so it really ticked every box."

Camilleri's timing proved fortunate as 12 months later Deep Impact was euthanised after a fracture of the cervical spine was found.

"She was queen from the day she was born, I know a lot of people say that but she genuinely she was," O'Brien said of City Of Lights.

"She was similar to Winx in the way that most of Vegas Showgirl's foals are very big, but she was a much finer model and a similar physique to Winx at the same age and was very correct and a beautiful mover with a great mind."

As O'Brien explains, it was only sheer chance that Vegas Showgirl, who was a dual Stakes performer herself under Graeme Rogerson, found herself on his shortlist when paying $455,000 for the daughter of Al Akbar back in 2008 at the broodmare sales.

"She wasn't on the list originally because I thought she lacked pedigree even though she was a Stakes winner," O'Brien reflects.

"I was looking at another filly and Vegas Showgirl got brought out of her box at the end of the breezeway and she was just so good looking … still to this day she is the best-looking mare I've seen.

"She has a beautiful colour, plenty of size, scope and strength and the most beautiful head you've ever seen in your life, lovely hip and action, she is drop-dead gorgeous."

While O'Brien's recommendation to buy the mare might have been a stroke of genius, his advice to Camilleri to sell her second foal, a filly by Street Cry, still haunts him to this day.

"I always say I can't believe John still speaks to me," he said with a laugh.

"Because when Winx was at the yearling sales, he came up to me and said 'I don't want to sell her' and he really liked her and I said 'You've got to sell her'.

"She was a refined filly, I made a mistake and should have sold her at Easter, she would've been a nicer horse in three more months, so she was a bit out of place at the Magic Millions amongst the robust sprinter types.

"She was elegant but lacked real substance but did have a lovely action, although she was a bit soft in her pasterns."

And as they say, the rest is history.

Below is a summary of Vegas Showgirl and what her progeny have achieved on the racetrack and in the breeding barn themselves.

Miss Atom Bomb (mare by Encosta de Lago) - The first foal from Vegas Showgirl was sold to New South Wales trainer Tim Martin at the 2012 Karaka Yearling Sales for $150,000. She finished last, however, in her only trial at Gosford and never raced. Subsequently she has had six foals that have fetched as much as $750,000 in the sales ring. Of the three to race, Nuclear Blitz won a three-horse maiden for Team Hawkes and Bionic a Hawkesbury maiden for Gerald Ryan. Team Snowden debuted a son of I Am Invincible in March named Acquaro who finished eighth at Gosford.

Winx (mare by Street Cry) - Winx was the result of a $110,000 service fee to Street Cry and was Vegas Showgirl's second foal and was set for sale through the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in 2013. The bay filly caught the eye of bloodstock agent Guy Mulcaster and fetched $230,000 for Chris Waller and her syndicate of owners. Winx commenced her career in June 2014 at Warwick Farm where she saluted and would go on to win a further 36 races, her last 33 wins in succession and 25 of them at G1 level resulting in over $26 million in prizemoney. Winx sadly lost her first foal by I Am Invincible but produced a bay Pierro filly two years later. Winx was unsuccessful getting in foal with Snitzel last season.

Win Win Leader (gelding by Fastnet Rock) - The foal after Winx was a colt by Fastnet Rock who was sold at the 2014 Karaka Yearling Sale for $220,000. The horse originally trailed up in New Zealand and was later sold to Hong Kong where he was trained under Denis Yip. Win Win Leader never raced in Hong Kong and was sent back to Australia and resides with Queensland trainer Billy Healy in retirement.

El Divino (colt by Snitzel) - The Snitzel colt was the first of the progeny kept by John Camilleri, presumably after Winx was unbeaten in her juvenile season and showing promise. El Divino was sent to Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and was also unbeaten from two starts in his two-year-old season including the G3 Kindergarten Stakes when dead-heating with Astern. El Divino later changed hands to be trained by Darren Weir where he was a runner-up twice at Listed level in the Kensington Stakes and Chandler Macleod Stakes. El Divino was sadly humanely euthanised after suffering an irreparable injury in a light piece of work at Ararat in November 2017.

Boulder City (colt by Snitzel) - Winx's momentum was well and truly underway by the time a Snitzel colt was put through the ring in 2016 at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale. Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott went to $2.3 million on Vegas Showgirl's fifth foal later to be named Boulder City. The colt suffered a suspensory injury and was never raced and now resides at Riverbank Farm in Benalla for a modest service fee of $5,500. He has served 232 mares in five seasons at stud with progeny including Moonee Valley winner Cobblestone Way.

Courchevel (mare by Snitzel) - The first filly from Vegas Showgirl since Winx, who by this stage was a Cox Plate winner, John Camilleri kept the full sister to El Divino and elected to send her to Ciaron Maher and David Eustace. She was retired unraced at later sold at the 2021 Inglis Chairmans Sale for $900,000 to Arrowfield which has resulted in a filly by Capitalist and is currently in foal to Dundeel.

Covent Garden (mare by Exceed And Excel) - Vegas Showgirl's run of fillies continued when John Camilleri called upon Winx's trainer Chris Waller to train the first of her progeny since Winx. Covent Garden had five starts for Waller with a third in a Newcastle maiden her best result before being switched to Peter Moody and winning a maiden on the Pakenham synthetic. She was soon after retired and retained by Camilleri and is currently in foal to I Am Invincible.

City Of Lights (filly by Deep Impact) - When Winx won the 2018 Cox Plate, Vegas Showgirl was in Japan having traveled over three months earlier to be served by Japanese sensation Deep Impact. The now deceased Deep Impact stood for a service fee of approximately $500,000 AUD and the result was her third consecutive filly born back in Australia the following September. Trained by Anthony and Sam Freedman, the filly won on debut at Geelong in June 2023.

Time Of My Life (filly by I Am Invincible) - Vegas Showgirl was next met with a date with the new kid on the block of leading Australian stallions and produced her fourth consecutive filly. Camilleri would later call the filly Time of My Life and send her to Peter Moody to train. The stable was hopeful of her making her debut this preparation after looking smart winning two Pakenham jump outs but instead has opted to send her for a spell and is expected to be seen later in the year.

Taleitaki (filly by Pride Of Dubai) - A rising two-year-old and the youngest of Vegas Showgirl's progeny on the ground, Taeleitaki is the tenth foal and the fifth consecutive filly. She will spend three more months on the farm at Segenhoe Stud before a trainer is considered.

Vegas Showgirl is currently in foal to Snitzel and is expected to foal in mid to late October. O'Brien says it will 'more than likely' be Vegas Showgirl's 11th and final foal.


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Second Chance View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Second Chance Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Jun 2023 at 6:22pm
Thanks Gay.  A very interesting read.  Thumbs Up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote TJMitchell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Oct 2023 at 2:54pm
Passed away this morning. RIP
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote djebel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Oct 2023 at 3:14pm
That is a shame.

21 years old.

reductio ad absurdum
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote brave_ponies Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Oct 2023 at 3:28pm
Sad she didn’t make retirement.
Any news if the foal survived?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote djebel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Oct 2023 at 3:37pm
She missed in 2022.
reductio ad absurdum
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Grey Affair Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Oct 2023 at 6:52pm
RIP Vegas Showgirl

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