Griff Becomes Trapeze Artist's First Group 1 Winner

It was a series of 'firsts' when exciting colt Griff (Trapeze Artist) led his rivals a merry dance to score an all-the-way win in Saturday's stallion-making Gr1 Caulfield Guineas. Trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, it was a third consecutive Stakes victory for Griff who has remained undefeated since heading to Melbourne last month following two runs in Sydney to start his 3YO campaign. The win was a first at Group 1 level for Griff's sire Trapeze Artist – who stands at Widden - and a first Group 1 result for Widden Victoria, to the delight of Antony Thompson. "It's such a big result for Widden Victoria, to breed and sell a G1 winner through what was our first draft at the Premier Sale since expanding into Victoria, it's a real testament to what we're doing in Victoria and a really proud moment for all of us,'' Thompson said. "It was such a good, strong win. It's also fantastic for Trapeze Artist to really cement his place as such a star stallion of the future. We've always held him [Trapeze Artist] in enormous regard and we're not at all surprised but it's just lovely for him to do it early in the spring and it's huge for [Trapeze Artist's owner] Bert [Vieira].'' Griff – co-bred by Widden and Adrian Goonan - was an $80,000 Premier Yearling Sale purchase for Kavanagh Racing from the Widden draft. He became the 84th Gr1-winning Inglis graduate since 2018 and 39th that could have been purchased for $100,000 or less in that same period. Fellow Inglis graduate Veight (Grunt) finished second. Griff became the third Inglis graduate to win the Caulfield Guineas in the past six years following earlier successes of Ole Kirk (2020) and The Autumn Sun (2018).

Griff is Trapeze Artist's first elite winner (pic: Mark Gatt)