Talented Macau based three-year-old Northern Champion scored his biggest win to date when he cruised to victory in Saturday’s listed Lisboa Challenge (1500m).
A son of South Australian based sire Mugharreb, Northern Champion beat home star three-year-old Oriental Taste to win the feature event in great style.
Racing for just the fifth occasion, Northern Champion notched win number three in the Lisboa Challenge – a domestic stakes grade event.
Northern Champion’s record reads out at three wins and two second placings from just five lifetime starts. He is trained by Vincent Chong and was ridden to victory by Fausto Durso.
He was purchased for just $2,250 by Port Lincoln based horsewoman Jenny Gow-Whyte at the 2009 Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale. He was bred and sold by Riverside Stud.
Gow-Whyte, best known as the former owner and one time trainer of Odysseus, sold the youngster privately after he ran an eye catching second in a Morphettville Parks trial in July.
Known in Australia as Janiak, Northern Champion was three parts of a length behind Mark Minervini’s classy galloper Addiction to Rock. Third in the trial as city winner and Group Two runner-up Always Discreet.
In Saturday’s Macau feature Northern Champion held a length and a quarter margin over the proven stakes winning juvenile and fellow Magic Millions graduate Oriental Taste.
Golden Spiritual was the best of the rest in third place, a further length behind the runner-up.
Northern Champion is one of 28 promising young winners by the Willow Grove Stud based Gone West sire Mugharreb.
As well as a swag of winners throughout South Australia and around Australia, Mugharreb is the sire of Singapore based black type galloper Black Ice.
Northern Champion is one of two winners produced by the unraced Ascot Knight mare Ascot Prancer.
Ascot Prancer is from an unraced daughter of stakes winner Tandra Gee – the grandam of stakes winner Joku and stakes placegetter Palabiro.
Further back his is the same family as international stars including El Gran Senor, Try My Best, Solar, Dr Johnson, Chinchon and Solar.
PICS – Macau Jockey Club.
