Melbourne, October 22 – Ill-fated Golden Slipper winner Catbird has not been averse to throwing the odd staying type in the mould of a Cats Fun and he unearthed another at Geelong on Thursday with three year-old gelding The Tiger scoring a dominant win in the Listed Geelong Classic.
Ridden a heady race by Rhys McCleod from barrier two, The Tiger led his rivals a merry dance going on to take the 2200 metre event for three year-olds by the best part of three lengths from My Scotsgrey with Rebel Raider in third place.
Trained by Colin and Cindy Alderson, The Tiger was bred and retained to race by the Aldersons in partnership with a large group other owners and has won two of seven starts to date and more than $87,000 in prizemoney.
"We always planned to run him in the Derby," Cindy Alderson said.
"He is a bit one-paced but we thought he would stay and he proved it today.
"He hasn’t got a good turn of foot but if he can keep punching along like that then I think he will give them a run for their money (in the Derby)."
The Tiger is the first stakes-winner in three generations of his immediate family being from the metropolitan winning Zabeel mare Tio Belle, so is bred on the exact same Catbird x Zabeel cross as Group One WATC Derby winner Cats Fun.
Go back a little further in the pedigree and you come to some of the famous ‘Belle’ family from New Zealand and the Kashmir Belle branch of that family which features Aussie Group One winners Belle du Jour and Perfectly Ready.
The Tiger is one of 30 winners so far this season for Yarraman Park’s former classy sire Catbird, who passed away in June of last year, his final crop of foals yearlings to be sold in 2009.
Catbird also featured with a Doomben winner in Firedrake, who won his fourth race for the Gillian Heinrich stable after leading throughout to take a Class Three event over 1200 metres.
A $65,000 purchase for Heinrich from the Yarraman Park draft at the 2006 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale, Firedrake is from stakes-winning mare Flickering Fire who has a yearling filly by Foreplay and a colt foal by the same sire this spring.
