Coeur Volante (NZ) a Class Above at Caulfield

Karaka graduate Coeur Volante (NZ) (Proisir) has emerged as one of the standout three-year-old fillies in Melbourne this spring, collecting her second consecutive black-type victory in Saturday’s A$300,000 Group Two Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) at Caulfield.

Coeur Volante was offered by Prima Park in Book 1 of Karaka 2022, where she was bought for $90,000 by Paul Moroney Bloodstock and Ballymore Stables. The quality filly has now had four starts for three super-impressive wins, earning A$340,290 in stakes for a big syndicate of owners.

An outstanding last-start winner of the Group Three Scarborough Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley, Coeur Volante stretched out to 1400 metres on Saturday and delivered an equally impressive performance.

Ridden by Blake Shinn, Coeur Volante had to jump from gate 14 from Caulfield’s tricky 1400-metre start point. Shinn used up some of her petrol and sent her forward in the early stages of the race, taking up a prominent position just behind the leaders.

Coeur Volante was able to sprint again in the straight, kicking away to win with ease by a length and a quarter from Vivy Air (Hellbent). Another Karaka graduate, Zourion (NZ) (Zoustar), was close up in third.

“It was a great effort by my girl,” Shinn said. “She’s a really talented horse, as she displayed at The Valley, and the job was going to be for me and the horse to overcome that draw.

“I think it says a lot of the horse and her make-up, being able to make a couple of runs on her. These good horses, when they’re really good, you can make a couple of runs on them. It was a great quality for her to display today.”

Coeur Volante is trained by Mike Moroney, who described the filly as “pretty special” and confirmed that her target is the Group One Thousand Guineas (1600m) on November 18.

“It was another very good ride,” Moroney said. “I left it up to Blake, as you do with those good jocks. He said that he’d be positive if she flew the gates, and he’d ride her back if she didn’t. She flew the gates, and for a filly that has had very little practice, she did a good job getting across.

“I thought when they swung in she’d used her tickets, but gee she pulled that extra out.

“The decision we’ve got to make now is if we give her a run ten days before the Thousand Guineas on Melbourne Cup Day, or whether we go straight into it.”

Coeur Volante was bred by Fairdale Stud and is one of 14 individual stakes winners for the outstanding stallion Proisir, who has a dozen two-year-olds in the catalogue for the upcoming New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale.

The dam of Coeur Volante is Shanina (Testa Rossa), who has a perfect record as a broodmare with both of her two foals to race being stakes performers. Coeur Volante’s half-sister Hasstobemagic (NZ) (Scissor Kick) was runner-up in the Listed Counties Challenge Stakes (1100m) as a two-year-old.

Vendor	Prima Park
Purchaser	Paul Moroney Bloodstock/Ballymore Stables (Victoria)
Breeding	Proisir – Shanina
Sale	Lot 568, Karaka 2022 Book 1, $90,000
Bred by	Fairdale Stud (2007) Ltd