Display Model – 1992 Gr2 Majorca Stakes
One week after Koster Bros-bred London News captured the J&B Met, another product of their Cheveley Stud came to light when Roman Fantasy scrambled home a narrow winner of the Majorca Stakes over 1600m at Kenilworth.
No real surprises there, for Ceres-based Cheveley Stud was long established as one of the biggest and most successful in the business, but Graded Stakes winners don’t grow on trees no matter how many quality mares you have running around your paddocks. The 1997 Majorca Stakes, a Weight For Age contest restricted to the fairer sex, had a pretty open look about it with Fillies Guineas runner-up Wild Aster sent out a weakfish favourite to post the first feature race win of her life.
There was no shortage of likely opposition, however, and Roman Fantasy looked a big threat on the strength of her 2.75 lengths third behind League Title in the Arc-En-Ciel Paddock Stakes last time out. Peter Kannemeyer’s four-year-old had in fact finished two lengths ahead of Wild Aster that day, and any hopes that the 200m shorter Majorca distance would allow for a reversal of form were soon dashed.
Slew Per Signal, formerly trained in Natal by Mike Airey and making her debut for Eric Sands, ensured that they didn’t stop to admire the scenery and set what looked a brisk pace from She’s A Treat and Hail To Rule, with Wild Aster perfectly poised in around fourth place. Roman Fantasy was back in the bunch, finding herself outpaced and biding her time.
Slew Per Signal ran out of steam not long after turning for home, and was soon followed into oblivion by She’s A Treat, who perhaps hadn’t recovered from nearly being brought to her knees in a rough-and-tough race the week before. It was Fair Bianca who took up the running halfway down the straight, with Special Key challenging strongly towards the outside and Wild Aster going absolutely nowhere in between.
Fair Bianca still led 100m from home, but “Fast Freddie” Macaskill now had Roman Fantasy in full cry up the centre. No sooner had Special Key edged past Fair Bianca than Roman Fantasy nabbed them both, eventually going on to win by a head and again supporting the view that the older fillies are superior to their three-year-old counterparts this season.
Still, the younger generation did fill all the minor places, with the talented but frustrating Colne Valley running on well from far back to finish fourth. Wild Aster clearly didn’t run to her best form, but we have yet to see much proof that she is the star which has been made out to be in some quarters. Roman Fantasy was recording the first Stakes win of her career and has taken some time to come to her peak, but she had always been consistent barring one poor effort in very heavy going back in August.
Her new-found status as Gr2 winner, when allied to her pedigree, made the Wilfred and Shirley Koster-owned Roman Fantasy the envy of any breeder. A daughter of Complete Warrior, surely one of the most consistently successful stallions around at the time, she was out of the Northern Drive mare Via Appia and was therefore a half sister to multiple Gr1 winning filly Vesta. Roman Fantasy went on to produce the top class eight time winner Roman Charger (Al Mufti). Trained by the Kannemeyers , he won the Gr2 Selangor Cup, the Gr2 Green Point Stakes, the Gr3 Peninsula Handicap, the Gr3 Matchem Stakes, the Gr3 WPOTA Peninsula Handicap and the Gr3 Cape Of Good Hope Nursery.
