The final race on a stellar card at Eagle Farm may have thrown up the win of the day.
Completing a stakes treble for Peter and Paul Snowden, Emirate Park’s 3yo I Am Invincible filly Najmaty came from a seemingly impossible position to capture the Listed Magic Millions Helen Coughlan Stakes (1200m).
The only ride of the day for Tommy Berry, Najmaty had just one runner behind her at the 300m.
Making her run down the centre of the track, Najmaty picked off one after another to win by three-quarters of a length. Salateen completed the quinella for I Am Invincible, a short-half-head to the good of the Dawn Approach (IRE) mare Tahitian Dancer.
Najmaty looked a budding superstar when winning her first two races, including the Listed Redoute’s Choice Stakes at Caulfield, but seemed to lose all form before bouncing back at Caulfield at her most recent start.
“She’s a lovely filly, and we’ve been ultra impressed with what she’s done at home, and we were very confident today,” Paul Snowden said.
“It was Tommy’s only ride for the day, he came up here with five, and four of them were scratched. So, he’s had a long day, but thankfully we’ve got her home.
“We could back-up next Saturday, or there’s another race for her in a fortnight. She’ll play on up here, providing we get back here (Eagle Farm) because she’s not a wet-track filly at all. As you can see that takes away from her finish.
“We were ultra-pleased with how she’s been working from home and, more importantly, getting the job done for Emirates Park.
“She certainly takes a fair bit of work, hence the fact of trials from one run to the next. She’s been kept up to the mark, but she will pull up pretty well from here, and she’s a resilient filly.
“As a two-year-old she was a Stakes winner and probably lost her way a bit 12 months ago and started playing up in the gates. We mended those manners, and she’s jumping really well.”
A homebred for Emirates Park, Najmaty is a half-sister to the talented Snitzel filly Najmah who visited I am Invincible last spring.
They are the first two live foals of the top-class Northern Meteor mare Najoom.
A $225,000 purchase out of Willow Park Stud draft at the 2013 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Najoom won five and was runner-up in two of her seven career starts. She looked like a Group 1 winner in waiting when trouncing the field in the Group III Hawkesbury Guineas, run that year at Rosehill.
It was a similar story at her next start, thrashing the Group III Fred Best Classic on this day in 2015, but sadly did not race again.
Najmaty descends from a prolific family, which was a Best On Breeding subject last year. (Read it here).
Najoom has a yearling sister to Najmaty and a weanling filly by Tassort. She was covered by Capitalist last spring.