BAGUETTE: HOW GOOD IS HE?

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32392, 3 September 1970, Page 4

BAGUETTE: HOW GOOD IS HE?

Few horses have made more impact on the Australian racing scene in recent years that Baguette, a newly turned three-year-old which has won $106,460 in stakes. A winner of his seven starts as a two-year-old, and his first as a three-year-old last. Baguette is out of Dark Jewel by the imported sire, Rego. Baguette won $103,460 as a two-year-old and easily eclipsed Vain’s stakes record, of $84,495 set in the 1968-69 season. Racing experts are arguing which of the two colts was the better. It will never be known. The words of the Australian champion jockey, G. Moore, probably best summarise the position. “Baguette is the best two-year-old I have ever ridden, but 1 have never ridden Vain."

Whatever the outcome of the arguments little will be proved except that Australian racing, on the law of averages, should not see as good a horse as these two for many years.

Baguette's dam, Dark Jewel, is by Star Kingdom from Red Lace. Dark Jewel has had eight foals sent to the race track and all have performed well. The first, born in 1958 was by Wilkes and named Ginger Bread. He won three of his five starts as a two-year-old but failed to produce the same form in latter seasons.

Powella, the second foal, won only one race. The third foal, Dark Jewel’s first filly, was by Baguette’s sire, Rego, and among her five wins as a two-year-old was the rich Victorian Racing Club’s Maribyrnong Plate, a race which Baguette won last season. Among her four wins as a three-year-old was a dead-heat in the V.R.C. 1000 Guineas. Betelguese, the fourth foal, by Wilkes, was a brilliant but unreliable entire which numbered among his wins the Lightnipg Handicap at Randwick in the 1968-69 season. By Edmundo, Dark Jewel’s fifth foal was Cabochon, one of the best sprinters to race in Australia in recent years. Troubled by unsoundness Cabochon proved his class wheo he won the 1968 Stradbroke Handicap. Birthright, Dark Jewel’s second filly, had several good wins but did not win any major races. After missing in 1965 Dark Jewel produced Lucie Manette, by Dickens. Also a filly she has raced with moderate success in the Sydney area. Then came Baguette, winner of the “Grand Slam,” .he A.J.C. Sires’ Produce Stakes and the Champagne Stakes and the S.T.C. Golden Slipper Stakes as well as the V.R.C. Maribyrnong Plate and three other races as a two-year-old. At his only start as a three-year-old he easily won the A.J.C. Hobartville Stakes cn August 15. The race, along with the Canterbury and Rosehil) Guineas Is considered a lead-

up race for the A.J.C. Derby. Although the family has shown little form over a distance Baguette’s trainer, F Aliotta, has been quoted as saying he expects his colt to have little trouble seeing out the distance.

But the highest praise came from T. J. Smith, the leading Sydney trainer, after Bafuettes’ win at Warwick arm.

"Baguette is a real cham pion and I think he is better than Vain. He can find things at any stage of the race and he can produce an amazing finish, no matter what distance.

“As far as 1 am concerned he will stay the Derby distance,” Smith said.

Baguette, like most of his dam’s produce, is bred and raced by Mr and Mrs P. G. Tait, of New South Wales.