Racing News
Breeding industry celebrates another promising 4YO.
Swing Is The Thing, a smart first-up winner at Harold Park last Friday, is yet another smart “swinger” to race for Peter Plummer, and there are parallels with his close relation, the Grand Circuit winner Mister Swinger.
This latest “swinger” kicked off his 4YO season in fine fashion when he flew down the outside to score a narrow but decisive win. The modest 2:02 mile rate reflected the muddling mid-race sectionals, and underlined the barnstorming finish of the winner.
Swing Is The Thing is a bay gelding , first foal, by Grinfromeartoear from Village Swinger 1:58.2 16 wins by Village Jasper from Baby Boomer by Windshield Wiper from Brad’s Angel 2:11.6 1 win by Select Yankee.
If the “Swinger” name doesn’t immediately identify the horse, the family pedigree certainly will – it’s been one of the most prolific sources of winners in recent years.
Village Swinger, his dam, was a class act, winning 16 races and placing a further nine times in 38 race starts. She took a fastest winning time of 1:58.2 in one of a number of Harold Park wins, and finished with stakes earnings of $104,774.
After a steady 2YO term which saw just one win, on debut in a Linden Huntley heat at Bulli, she improved markedly at three, where 13 starts included a sequence of seven straight wins, among them the Newcastle Oaks.
Another light campaign of 15 starts as a 4YO produced 5 wins, including the Ranji Bill Stakes , and she continued into her 5YO season for a further 4 satrts, winning 3. One of them was the Robin Dundee Stakes.
Her final race start was on November 18 , 2005 and exactly twelve months to the day later, her first foal Swing Is The Thing arrived, no doubt the pride and joy of his owner.
She has a 3YO Bettor’s Delight filly and a 2YO Real Desire colt, but tragedy struck when she died last year, along with her unborn Art Major foal. It’s a safe bet that her daughter will remain in the present ownership.
Village Swinger was one of seven winners ( five in better than 1:59 ) from 13 foals of Baby Boomer , an unraced full-sister to Winning Victory (2YO Vic. Sires champion ) , from 2YO winner Brad’s Angel, a half-sister to Tudor Diamond Watch Stakes winner Brad’s Gift.
Baby Boomer’s winners include Swing Again (Stoneridge Scooter), Jonell Sullivan (Armbro Operative ),Sir Swinger (Presidential Ball ) and for new owners John and Pat Booth, Delightfullybettor , last season’s smart 1:56.9 2YO winner.
The two standouts for Baby Boomer, to date, have been Swinging Scooter (Stonebridge Scooter ), a 1:53.4 winner after export to the U.S. where he extended his record to 50 wins and $456,457, and her 2003 son Mister Swinger, by Village Jasper, making him a full-brother to the dam of last week’s Harold Park winner.
Mister Swinger had a change of scenery midway through his 3YO season, to Victorian trainer Geoff Webster, and it’s been an agreeable one, with his current record showing 20 wins and stakes of $403,236. It seems almost certain that in the current season, he will become the family’s richest performer, and pass the half-million dollar mark.
His wins include the Victorian Winter Championship, the Hondo Grattan Sprint, the Grand Circuit S.A. Cup and the Group 1 Ballarat Cup, while placings include the Melton Plate, Kilmore Cup and a 2009 Inter-Dom. Heat at Albion Park.
Geoff Webster’s S.A. Cup win with Mister Swinger was especially appropriate, given that South Australia was originally home for both Webster and for the maternal family of Baby Boomer.
Now, Mister Swinger’s “nephew” by Grinfromeartoear has commenced his 4YO campaign in the most emphatic fashion. He’ll be followed with great interest, and could well repeat the open-class successes of the rest of his family.
Peter Plummer is a very friendly but nevertheless reserved gentleman- the very epitome of restraint. For him, swinging is associated with hammers or music, and not those other connotations. Nevertheless, he’s had a heap of fun naming, and racing, a swag of swingers, with hopefully plenty more to follow.
For him, swing is most definitely the thing.
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