Imperial Strike (Lucky Vega) ultimately dominated this field of debutants, moving to the front after 100m and gradually asserting in the closing stages to win with his ears pricked.
A half-brother to the four-time US winner Classy’n Connected (Connect), he is the second winner from three runners out of the lightly-raced Smart Strike mare Smart Dorie. The second dam Paris Rose (Accelerator) ran twice in the US as a three-year-old before producing two winners, namely the US Gr.3 winner Decelerator (Dehere; dam of the dual South African Gr.2 winner and Gr.1-placed Nafaayes and the Hong Kong Gr.3 winner Stoltz, grandam of the Australian Gr.2 winner and Gr.1-placed Hedged) and the Gr.2 (then) Dwyer Stakes-placed Cool Blue Red Hot (Harlan’s Holiday). Paris Rose is a half-sister to the Gr.1 Test Stakes winner Fabulously Fast (Deputy Minister), who is the best of seven winners produced by the US Gr.1 heroine Fabulous Notion (Somethingfabulous). The last-named is a half-sister to the sire Cacoethes (Alydar), who won the Gr.2 King Edward VII Stakes and finished third in the Gr.1 Derby in Britain at three before winning at Gr.1 level in the US as a four-year-old.
Smart Dorie has a yearling full-sister to Imperial Strike.
Written for European Bloodstock News
