Following consecutive runner-up efforts in his last two trips to the post, Medaglia d’Oro’s Talismanic was primed to break into the Group winning ranks and didn’t disappoint with a fantastic win in the G2 Prix Maurice de Nieuil on July 14th at Saint-Cloud.
The four-year-old didn’t veer from his normal mid-pack running style for the majority of the race and was set down for his run about a half mile from home. It wasn’t hard to miss the blue Godolphin silks and the unusual white face horse of Talismanic as he began to pass his competitors about a quarter mile out, while finishing strongly to win in hand.
Talismanic was bred in Great Britain by Darley and is the fifth winner from as many runners out of the mare Magic Mission. Winner of the G3 Royal Heroine Stakes, Magic Mission was also Graded-placed six other times in America and France, including a third in the G1 Matriarch Stakes.
Medaglia d’Oro is the sire of nine stakes winners in 2017, including G1 winners Songbird, New Money Honey and Dickinson. No other stallion in North American has as many. In the sales ring, he was represented by the $1 million dollar sale-topping filly at the recent Fasig-Tipton July Sale. That matched the highest price for a filly ever sold at that venue and brings to six the total number of sale-topping yearlings he’s sired in the past 10 years. Again, no other sire can match that feat.
