Impressive Debut Winner for Justify

Triple Crown hero Justify is riding high at the top of the Australian first season sires list and posted an impressive debut winner at Cranbourne on Friday when Legacies (2f Justify x Abyssinie, by Danehill Dancer) opened her account.

Trained by Peter Moody, Legacies was well fancied in the 1200 juvenile fillies maiden and scored a dominant length and a quarter win.

She led for home and was strong all the way to the line to win decisively for Luke Nolen.

“She’s a beautiful filly, really quite scopey and as she gets older and matures we will definitely see good improvement in her,” said stable representative Katherine Coleman.

“She’s trialled up well and educated really nicely so it’s great to her come to the races and handle the night so well.

“We’ll see how she comes out of this race and reassess after that.”

A homebred for Rosemont Stud, Legacies is the fourth winner from Irish bred Abysinnie, a blue-blood three-quarter sister by Danehill Dancer to multiple Group I winners Artiste Royale and Aquarelliste from an elite European family packed with Black Type.

Legacies is the third Australian winner for Justify, whose outstanding filly Learning to Fly won the Group II ATC Reisling Stakes and $2million Inglis Millennium before losing her rider in the Golden Slipper.

The second crop of Australian Justify yearlings have been popular at the sales this year with 10 averaging $369,000 at Magic Millions and a further 10 averaging $344,000 at Inglis Easter, so trainers are clearly happy with what they have seen so far and hold high hopes for their classic season to come.