3 minute read
Winx’s half-sister will make her debut this Friday night
On paper, the second race on Friday night's Cranbourne card looks a run-of-the-mill maiden, but it will be more anticipated than most 1300-metre fillies and mares maidens.
City Of Lights, a half-sister to legendary mare Winx, will make her debut in the race that will be run at 6.15pm.
The three-year-old is the result of the union between Deep Impact and Winx's dam Vegas Showgirl, which took place in Japan in the spring of 2018.
City Of Lights is in the care of Victorian trainers Anthony and Sam Freedman and preparations for her debut have included four jumpouts, two of which occurred in April last year.
This campaign she has finished fifth of nine in an 800m Flemington workout on May 5 before working home strongly to finish a close second to seven-start maiden Champagne In Lace over the same distance on May 19.
City Of Lights has the services of in-form jockey Ben Allen at Cranbourne and will start from the outside alley in the field that is down to 10.
She will become the fourth to race from Vegas Showgirl, whose star performer is Winx, the winner of 37 of her 43 starts, including four Cox Plates and 21 other Group 1 events. She retired the winner of $26,451,174 in stakes.
Vegas Showgirl's only other Stakes performer has been El Divino, a son of Snitzel who dead-heated with Astern in the Group 3 Kindergarten Stakes at his second start and was twice a runner-up at Listed level.
Miss Atom Bomb (Encosta de Lago filly), Win Win Leader (Fastnet Rock colt), Boulder City (Snitzel colt) and Courchevel (Snitzel filly) did not race, while Covent Garden (Exceed And Excel filly) won one of seven starts.
After having City Of Lights, Vegas Showgirl visited I Am In Invincible and had a filly, now two years old, who has been named Time Of My Life and is in the stable of Peter Moody, while her yearling Pride Of Dubai filly has been named Taleitaki.
