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A breakdown of where the Guineas favourite’s sire’s winners have come from
The big question many are grappling with in the lead-up to Saturday's $3 million Group 1 Caulfield Guineas is whether the favourite Golden Mile will run a strong 1600 metres.
He looked powerful winning the Group 3 Ming Dynasty Quality (1400m) two starts ago but weakened in the concluding stages of his recent performance, albeit in the much stronger Group 1 Golden Rose (1400m).
The James Cummings-trained colt is a son of Astern, who himself won a Golden Rose and is still relatively new to his stallion career with his oldest progeny only four years of age.
The son of Medaglia D'Oro has had 173 individual starters, 78 of which have won at a winners-to-runners ratio of 45.08 percent.
Those 173 horses combined for 1001 starts for a total of 115 wins, which is a strike-rate of 11.48 percent.
He has had 97 winners from 725 starters in races up to 1499m, a strike-rate of 13.38 percent, with 276 starters in races of 1500m or beyond producing 18 wins at 6.52 percent.
Those 18 wins at 1500m-plus are shared by 10 horses, seven of which race in America, where Astern also stood.
His three wins in Australia are Zadig's 1500m Highway Handicap success at Randwick, Nopain's win in a 1600m Class 1 at Orange and Asternishing's win in a 2400m Mornington maiden.
They are numbers that will appeal to those who doubt Golden Mile at the Guineas trip, but Cummings has done his best to put his fans at ease, suggesting the colt gave him the look of a Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) horse early in the preparation.
"Going off his run first-up in the Up And Coming (Stakes), he should just about have been favourite for the Spring Champion," Cummings said.
"Then going off his run in the Ming Dynasty he had 'take me to the Caulfield Guineas' written all over him.
"Unfortunately, he just didn't quite get it right in the Golden Rose. He got used up, we had Daumier underneath us and a bit more pressure went on before the turn and it was somewhat of a race at the 350m.
"The horse was found wanting by less than 1-1/2 lengths to a very, very good horse in Jacquinot, who flew like an absolute machine to win on the line against our filly (In Secret) we regard as an elite three-year-old filly."
Golden Mile is one of five Stakes winners for Astern, another being Group 3 Caulfield Guineas Prelude (1400m) winner Aft Cabin, who would have started a short-priced favourite in Saturday's race had he not bled in trackwork last weekend.
Seradess is a four-time Stakes winner up to 1200m, Danger Strykes won the Listed Castletown Stakes (1200m) in New Zealand, while Sail By won the Group 2 Miss Grillo Stakes (1710m) at Belmont Park in America.
Golden Mile is out of the Lonhro mare Calaverite, whose two wins both came at Listed level, in the Gimcrack Stakes (1000m) and St Albans Stakes (1200m).
He is her third foal, the others being Calaveras, a son of dual Melbourne Cup-winning sire Teofilo, whose only win from 18 starts came in a 2018m Class 1 at Taree, and Telluride (Medaglia d'Oro), who won a Moonee Valley maiden over 1000m but never raced beyond 1147m.