Ex-George Boughey star Via Sistina wins second Australian Group 1 in Winx Stakes

Last season's Champion Stakes runner-up Via Sistina claimed a second top-level victory in Australia on Saturday, winning the Winx Stakes at Randwick for Chris Waller.

The Fastnet Rock six-year-old is the latest former British-trained runner to flourish in Australia, as she narrowly got the better of better-fancied stablemates Zougotcha and Fangirl in the first Group 1 of the new season.

It comes after she won the Ranvet Stakes on her first start for connections in March. She was bought by leading Australian owners Yu Long Investments for 2,700,000gns at Tattersalls last December, having won the Pretty Polly Stakes and finished second in the Prix Jean Romanet and Champion Stakes for George Boughey. 

The seven-furlong trip was expected to be too short and jockey Kerrin McEvoy was one of the first off the bridle, but she surged home in the final stages.

Waller told Racing.com: "She’s a very smart horse and I’m privileged to be training horses like her. She's a pickup addition to the stable.

“The others are stalwarts and she's beaten them today, but it'll be a match race I'm sure in a few weeks’ time.

“It was a beautiful ride from Kerrin. He didn’t go around a horse, saved ground and had plenty of horse topping the famous Randwick rise. She was strong all the way to the line.”

Via Sistina is proving one of the great surprises having only cost 5,000gns as a yearling. Only one her four siblings won a race, off a rating of 56, from 36 starts but she has gone on to accumulate £1.75 million in prize-money.

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