Stakes Win for Northern Meteor Colt

Tommy Berry won last year’s Golden Slipper aboard the Gai Waterhouse trained filly Overreach and thinks he can win it again this year riding her exciting Northern Meteor colt Fighting Sun.

An impressive winner on debut last month, Fighting Sun stepped out in the Listed ATC Canonbury Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday and confirmed that potential when powering away to beat his stablemate Mr Cha Cha by three lengths in the 1100 metre scamper.

Tommy Berry gave a victory salute over the line befitting a bigger race than this and it wasn’t hard to tell what he was thinking.

“I’ve ridden plenty of good fillies, but he’s something special,” he said.

A $180,000 Magic Millions purchase for Gai Waterhouse/James Harron Bloodstock from the draft of Turangga Farm, Fighting Sun runs for the Asian based Sun Bloodstock Pty Ltd managed by Ting Kong Cheng, whose Sun International Group took over Eliza Park last year.

“He’s a very serious horse,” said Waterhouse.

“We put the blinkers on him as he just wanted to shy away from the semaphore board in his trial the other day.

“He cruised in second spot and then accelerated away. These good two year-olds just keep improving every time you put them down and that’s what he’s doing.”

Bred by Stuart Ramsey’s Turangga Farm, Fighting Sun is the second winner for Group I SAJC Australasian Oaks winner Irish Darling, whose sire Ivory’s Irish won the Group I AJC Australian Derby.

Irish Darling was covered again by ill-fated Northern Meteor in 2012, so has a filly foal from his very last crop that is a full sister to Fighting Sun.

Fighting Sun is the sixth stakes-winner for Northern Meteor, who has eight entries for Inglis Premier and 27 for Inglis Easter.