Another Widden Stud Bred Stakes-Winner

Lightly raced Northern Meteor mare Atmospherical maintained her impressive strike rate when scoring a powerful win in the Listed VRC Dilmah Earl Grey Stakes at Flemington on Oaks Day.

The Widden Stud bred mare made it six wins from 10 starts when she surged home to win the 1000 metre sprint by a length and a half for James McDonald.

“She was brilliant. She relaxed well and was too good,” said McDonald.

“She’s a very progressive mare and her record speaks for itself.”

Atmospherical was passed in shy of a modest $40,000 reserve at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale and retained to race by Widden Stud’s Antony Thompson and partners, who sent her to Warwick Farm trainer David Pfieffer.

He had trained her older half-sister Gai’s Choice with great success and has done a great job with Atmospherical, who has now won over $300,000 in prizemoney.

“She’s always been a handy filly and is getting better with age,” said Pfieffer.

“She looked the winner a long way out.”

Already a stakes-winner having won the Listed Denise’s Joy Stakes at Scone earlier this year, Atmospherical is one of four winners from four foals to race from stakes-placed Flying Spur mare Faster Pussycat and is a half-sister to stakes-winners Peron and Gai’s Choice.

Faster Pussycat has a yearling filly by Sepoy and produced a filly by More Than Ready (USA) at the start of October.

Atmospherical is one of 12 stakes-winners for ill-fated Northern Meteor, whose star son Zoustar is working through a stellar book of mares here at Widden Stud this spring.