Star colt caps off amazing week for Santic

Starspangledbanner capped off an amazing week for Makybe owner Tony Santic in the Caulfield Guineas last Saturday.

“My wife Deslee gave birth to our beautiful healthy girl Charli Rose on Saturday morning, Lucky Thunder had won on Friday night at Moonee Valley and then Starspangledbanner takes out the Guineas,” Santic beamed.  “It was truly an incredible couple of days.”

Starspangledbanner was always a favourite among the Makybe grooms leading up to the 2008 Inglis Melbourne Premier yearling sale and was eventually sold for $120,000.  “Brad (Spicer) invited me to stay in him and now he’s won the Guineas,” Santic said.  “Brad found 30 other owners and I’m just as happy as every one of them including the boys that nearly brought down the grandstand on Saturday!”

Starspangledbanner is the shining star among Makybe’s outstanding crop of three year-olds.  Other Makybe graduates bred in 2006 to win at stakes level include Corsaire, Exceedingly French and Common Interest.

Makybe also purchased outstanding filly Headway who charged homed in last Saturday’s Thoroughbred Club Stakes.  The run was reminiscent of her barnstorming second in the G1 Golden Slipper Stakes in the autumn.

Makybe’s list of stakes winners in recent years also includes Musket, the half brother to Makybe Diva, Exceedingly Good and 2007 VRC Oaks winner Arapaho Miss.

Makybe is a 3200 acre nursery nestled in the Barrabool Hills by the banks of the Barwon River in Victoria.  It’s home to legendary mare Makybe Diva who rewrote the record books while stopping the nation in three Melbourne Cups.

Makybe Diva has an 2yo colt by Fusaichi Pegasus, a yearling colt by Galileo and she foaled a bay filly by Encosta De Lago on August 28.

Gold Anthem, the dam of Starspangledbanner, has been sent to Redoute’s Choice this year.  “She’s a proven Group 1 producer now,” Santic explained.  “She deserves to go to a proven G1 sire like Redoute’s Choice who also won a Caulfield Guineas.”

Gold Anthem has a Rock of Gibraltar filly destined for the 2010 Inglis Easter yearling sale and she has just foaled a flashy chestnut colt from the first crop of Makybe’s Tale of the Cat sire Purrealist.