THE RACEHORSES #4: MOSTO VERDE 

Courtesy Carrot Club

Mosto Verde is a colt by the Japan Derby winner, Tanino Gimlet, out of Easy Lover. Tanino Gimlet was sired by Brian's Time (Jaguar's father), which means Roberto and Hail To Reason blood. The damsire was Crystal Palace (winner of the Prix du Jockey Club - the French Derby, in effect), and going back further on Tanino Gimlet's dam line brings in the legendary Sea-Bird, who won the Epsom Derby and the L'Arc de Triomphe. 

Easy Lover is actually quite an interesting horse, as she is registered as Canadian, but had a successful racing career on both turf and dirt in Chile (13-6-1 from 24 starts) before her era as a broodmare began. Some of her children have put in remarkable performances, so by mixing her blood with that of Yuzo Tanimizu's star stallion (Vodka is without doubt the star mare to come from his stable), it should give a formidable combination in terms of strength and speed, at least on paper.

Looking at the bloodlines, it's easy to see where Easy Lover gets her pace from, with Alwasmi (by Northern Dancer) as her father, and Bustino (a St Leger winner) and Highclere (one of HM the Queen's finest racehorses, taking 1000 Guineas honours as a youngster) being in his DNA make-up. On her dam side, In Reality and Foggy Note won a large number of races between them, and Northern Dancer features again if we go back a fifth generation.

The Saito Stable at Miho Training Centre have been slowly building up the muscle tone of this playful little character, with constant 17-second furlong times on the dirt course. The pace of the programme is due to pick up any minute, but there's still no sign of a debut as yet. I'll be sure to keep you up-to-date with any further developments...