Primetime Emmy gives Extreme Choice a first European Group winner

Australian-bred two-year-old Primetime Emmy secured her first Group success when she defeated Scythe by a short head in Saturday’s Group 3 Prix Eclipse Tattersalls at Chantilly.

The Extreme Choice filly, bred by Kingstar Farm and trained in France by Francis-Henri Graffard, became her sire’s 17th Group winner and rewarded a breeding plan designed specifically around European juvenile racing.

After racing in fourth, Primetime Emmy wore down the previously unbeaten Scythe in a tight finish, with Belisa Bay another three and a half lengths behind in third.

Kingstar’s Matthew Sandblom, who is also a shareholder in Newgate, continued breeding Extreme Choice beyond the customary Australian season in an attempt to produce foals aligned with the Northern Hemisphere calendar.

The stallion, whose fertility has restricted his books throughout his stud career, served mares into February, March and April.

Sandblom said only six of about 30 mares conceived during that period. Two resulting fillies were sent to Graffard: Primetime Emmy and the unraced Extreme Dream.

“I tried to look at mares that, A, were not already in foal and, B, had a chance of producing a two-year-old winner because they had already done so in the past,” Sandblom told media at Chantilly.

Primetime Emmy is out of the Listed-winning King’s Chapel mare Princess Emmy, who has also produced Group 3 Chairman Stakes winner Thurlow and Listed Anzac Day Stakes winner Three Kings.

Sandblom said the European campaign was intended to take advantage of the additional Australian summer and preserve the speed associated with Extreme Choice’s progeny.

“I thought, ‘Go early, try and get a two-year-old,’” he said. “That’s the best chance of beating the Europeans at their own game. And it came off.”

The Prix Eclipse victory fulfilled the stakes objective of Kingstar’s experiment. Sandblom said he believed it was unprecedented for an Australian-bred horse to travel to Europe and win a Group race at two.

“It’s one of the biggest thrills of my racing career,” he said. “I’ve won lots of Group 1s and everything, but this is up there with the best.”