Debut Win for Sale-Topping Fastnet

Expensive colt King’s Rock (3c Fastnet Rock x Nureyev’s Girl, by Nureyev) made a winning debut at Te Rapa in New Zealand on Wednesday. Purchased for $1.75 million from the Cambridge Stud draft at the 2012 NZB Premier Yearling Sale by David Ellis, the Jason Bridgman trained King’s Rock overcame an outside gate to charge home and win over 1400 metres by a head. "We know Te Rapa  is not an easy place to come from well back but he drew the outside gate and we didn't want to hustle him, and Matthew (Cameron) rode a very patient race on him," commented Bridgman. "It was a very good effort to quicken up and finish as strong as he did, we all like to see a colt with his pedigree show a nice turn of foot. "He is a lovely big colt that has taken a little bit of time to get the strength to match his frame. He wasn't really strong enough to race at two, but since he has wintered the strength is there and since his first trial this preparation he has really turned the corner and kept on improving. He is a really progressive type of colt and I think he will just go from strength to strength from here. "I think he is a horse that has good stamina about him as well but he quickened up nice enough today to show that he could be a top-class colt at a miler as well. We will take it race by race and then cement plans but at the moment we have 2000 Guineas in the back of our minds." The top priced offering at Karaka in 2012, King’s Rock is a three-quarter brother to Group I winner King’s Rose and is the third winner form stakes-placed Nureyev’s Girl.