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The judgement of the late Roy Higgins, the Australian Hall of Fame jockey who died last month, left a legacy that could provide much joy in Australian racing in coming years.
His input was behind two 2-year-olds who shone in feature races in Sydney and Melbourne last weekend.
Both trained by Peter Moody and raced by syndicates formed by Higgins and Wylie Dalziel Racing, they are Bring Me The Maid, a fast finishing third in the G1 Golden Slipper at Rosehill Gardens, and Easy Drama, an impressive debut winner of the Vobis Gold Ingot at Flemington.
Both youngsters were acquired by Higgins and his long time business partrner Dalziel at the Magic Millions yearling sale at the Gold Coast.
Bring Me The Maid realised $105,000 and Easy Drama was acquired for only $40,000.
Bring Me The Maid was sold by Fig Tree Thoroughbreds for her longtime Queensland breeders Murray and Sue Murdoch.
She is an August 27 foal by More Than Ready’s Golden Slipper winner Sebring from Maid For Me, a Belong To Me 2YO winner in Sydney and a half-sister to Patou, dam of the 2003 Golden Slipper winner Polar Success.
Another half-sister, Icecapade, is the dam of Ain’t Seen Nothin’, a Nothin’ Leica Dane stakes winner who has produced two stakes winners including Bachman, the All American colt who recorded his second successive Sydney win in the G3 The Schweppervescence at Rosehill last Saturday.
Bred in Victoria, Easy Drama, is another impressive galloper resulting from interstate patronage of Queensland’s Glenlogan Park Stud.
A half-brother to Free Wheeling, winner of the G2 Champagne Classic at Doomben and two Listed races, Easy Drama is by the Queensland bred Real Saga (Tale of the Cat) from Miss Carefree, a Last Tycoon winner from Lady Of Renown, a Morphettville Guineas winner by Lord Seymour.
The next dam is Toltrice, the outstanding Matrice mare who won the VRC Oaks, Thousand Guineas, Wakeful Stakes and Alister Clark Stakes as a 3YO.
Real Saga started favourite in the 2009 Golden Slipper with his valiant fourth on a heavy surface the furthest back he finished in six starts at two.
In Sydney he won the G2 Breeders’ Plate, G2 Todman Slipper Trial and one other and in Melbourne succeeded in the G3 Blue Diamond Prelude and was second in the G1 Blue Diamond Stakes.
Real Saga has got off to a very promising start as a sire.
At the end of 2012-13 he was Queensland’s Leading Sire of Juveniles and fourth behind Exceed And Excel, Northern Meteor and Snitzel on the national juvenile list.
This season he has 24 Australian winners to date, including six second crop 2-year-olds.
He is third leading two crop sire behind Sebring and Northern Meteor, and is again Queensland’s leading 2YO sire.