A debut victory is special. For Honour The Bassett, Saturday’s win at Warracknabeal was also the first racing reward from a journey that began at the Magic Millions sales.
The three-year-old colt was purchased by Wylie Dalziel and Peter Moody as a yearling from Newgate Stud at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
He had plenty going for him on pedigree. Honour The Bassett is by the late champion sire Wootton Bassett, who stood at Coolmore Stud and left an extraordinary international legacy.
But buying the yearling was only the beginning.
Since then, Peter Moody, Katherine Coleman and the team behind the scenes at Moody Racing have been responsible for developing that young prospect into a racehorse. Saturday was the first opportunity for his ownership group to see all of that work put to the test.
And Honour The Bassett handled his first assignment like he’d done it before.
Zac Spain had him quickly into stride in the Mick Morcom Maiden Plate over 1000 metres, but didn’t ask the colt to become involved in an early speed battle. Instead, he allowed the leaders to go and settled Honour The Bassett comfortably in third along the rail.
It proved an ideal introduction to racing.
Spain found room approaching the straight and Honour The Bassett began to build. Once the opening appeared, the colt strode through with purpose, took care of What Once Was and drew away over the concluding stages to win by 1.3 lengths.
There was no need for anything spectacular. He began well, settled when asked, found his opportunity and finished the job.
For Dalziel Racing and our owners, that’s an exciting way to begin.
There are months of decisions, education, stable work and anticipation between identifying a yearling at Magic Millions and watching him walk onto a racetrack for the first time. Wylie and Peter made the decision to bring Honour The Bassett home; Peter, Katherine and their team have done the work of preparing him; Zac gave him the right introduction on race day.
The owners finally got to enjoy the result.
Congratulations to everyone involved with Honour The Bassett. One start, one win—and hopefully the beginning of a very enjoyable journey together.
And as it turned out, the Dalziel Racing team wasn’t finished for the afternoon.
[NEXT: Dalziel Racing lands the quinella in Darwin → Patriotic King and Mr Marrakech]
If you’d like to experience the excitement of racehorse ownership and be part of a winning team, explore our current ownership opportunities at dalzielracing.com.
