Vincent rates with the very best young horses I have seen. His NZ Derby win was a remarkable staying performance, probably the only time he has ever been asked to race on full throttle, His Breeders Challenge Final win last season was breathtaking - 3 wide the first half mile then faced the breeze to win untroubled and untouched in 1:50.2.

The relevance of sires, or lack of, in his family is neither here nor there. John Saunders Jones sent his mare Saunders Directa to board at BJ Lodge in the 1970's and the UK-bred mare with some old German trotting blood has became the foundation of an outstanding family in the subsequent 4 decades. This has been due to some of the good fillies in the family leaving even better fillies - such as Self Denial, Full Pleasure and her daughter Kept for Pleasure (dam of Vincent) now making there mark in the broodmare ranks. Check Full Pleasure's breeding record - unbelievable - and Vincent's half sister Mackenzie has won around US$360k in the past year and is being widely acknowledged as the best pacing mare in North America.

The sires on Vincent's dam side have all been leading sires - Safely Kept, Armbro Operative, Kentucky, Hilarious Way and Holly Sand, who sired Saunders Directa while in quarantine in Wales en-route to Neptune Stud in Tasmania.

And Vincent is a magnificent horse in all respects. Don't be fooled into thinking he has been a bargain buy, he is probably one of the most sort-after stud prospects in the world. It has taken more than 6 decades since Noel Simpson started importing US stallions on an almost wholesale basis to improve our breed to the point that an Aussie-bred is now considered to be the top of the tree. In true Aussie fashion, he also has plenty of US, British and German bloodlines to be called an Aussie. I don't expect him to stand at a bargain basement price, either.

It's great that heavyweights of the industry, Alabar and Nevele R, have recognized Vincent's potential (especially in NZ which is screaming for alternative bloodlines) and pulled off the deal.