A more than Fair victory

It has been quite the international journey for Fairfield Flame, the talented mare born in Germany, embarking on a racing career in the UK – breaking her maiden at Nottingham – before being purchased by clients of Ballymore and heading to New Zealand.

Winning over 2200m at Rotorua last spring, impressing Paul Moroney in the process, she was then on her way to Flemington where she settled in quickly – on Wednesday, having only her second Australian run, winning in impressive fashion at Sandown.

Settling well back in the 1600m event, the six-year-old really let go over the final stages, quickly overhauling her rivals to win by a soft 1.8 lengths.

“That was pretty painless,” jockey Mark Zahra enthused, “she tracked into it very easily and she just way too good.”

“She was impressive,” he continued, “I think she is pretty good.”

Michael Moroney agreed.

“We were guessing a bit regarding the heavy going but she is a really nice mare who has a really good turn of foot.”

“Paul has always had a good opinion of her and the Melbourne Cup has always been on her radar.”

Lofty aims for a relatively lightly raced mare yet to be qualified but there are some nice races coming up for Fairfield Flame and, as Moroney noted “we snuck Brew into the Cup late, let’s hope we can do it again!”

Raced by the GG Syndicate and Owen Glenn, the well related Fairfield Flame is by Green Desert's Gr.1 son Oasis Dream out of the Generous mare Fantastic Flame.

Also dam of the Hong Kong Gr.3 winner Industrial Success, she is a half sister to the UK Group winners Moon Solitaire and Germano as well as the French stakes winner Fantastic Bid and the US Listed winner Fantastic Don.

Fantastic Flame's grandam Gaily won the Irish 1000 Guineas and other Gr.1 winning members of this prolific family include Naaquoos, Pilsudski, Fine Motion, Youmzain and Creachadoir.