WA Pacing Cup winner Diego from Mosgiel 

By Peter Wharton 

The Bettor’s Delight seven-year-old gelding Diego, who won the Group 1 $450,000 WA Pacing Cup and before that the Group 2 $100,000 J. P. Stratton Cup at Gloucester Park, is proving himself the star of the WA summer carnival. 

Diego was bred and is raced by prominent identities Syd and Shona Brown, of Mosgiel

Diego
(c) Hamilton Content Creators

He has won four of his last five starts and finished a creditable third in the Village Kid Sprint at his other appearance after drawing a wide gate and sitting parked throughout. 

The winner of 21 races and $664,759 in stakes, Diego is a descendant of the Light Brigade mare Omylight (foaled in 1960), the foundation mare of the Brown family from New Zealand’s Otago district. 

Sakura, the dam of Diego and the Australian metropolitan winners The Bachelor 1:52 ($110,448) and Mister Bushido 1:55.4 ($185,186), was a Christian Cullen mare from Mika, by What’s Next from Wakana, by Soky’s Atom from Deidre Ann, by Lordship from the Scottish Hanover mare Ruling Light, a daughter of Omylight. 

Omylight, who was unraced, left the Group 2 winner Shiplight (6 wins), Regal Light 1:58.2 (11 NZ wins), Salisbury and the Morrinsville Juvenile winner Sydney James (8 wins), who stood at the stud in Victoria. 

Mika, who won three races, became the dam of the Perth winner Misaki (1:58.9), Capri (1:57.8, a winner of nine) and London’s Burning. 

Shona Brown, middle, Syd Brown, right, moments after Friday night’s WA Pacing Cup win, and BN spies West Melton’s Jackie Butt there in the top row to join the celebrations in Perth.

The next dam, Wakana, was a half-sister to a useful racemare in Krystle, a winner of five races and dam of the outstanding racemare Foreal (1:55.8), a winner of 18 races and $664,800 including the Great Northern Oaks and NSW Oaks, NSW Ladyship Mile, NZ Sires’ Stakes 3YO Championship and a heat of the Inter Dominion.  

At the stud Foreal left the six-time Group 1 winner and millionaire pacer Field Marshal, whose record of 1:46.9 set in the 2018 Miracle Mile is still the fastest mile ever put up in the southern hemisphere. Others from Foreal have been the Menangle victors Rocknroll Magic 1:51.1 ($107,502) and Surreal (1:52.9), the Gloucester Park winner Forsure (1:56.2) and the exported Madiba Magic 1:51.4 ($199,772). 

Coming Up Roses, a Holmes Hanover half-sister to Foreal, distinguished herself as the dam of the Bendigo Cup winner Regal Dash 1:57.4 ($152,824), Delightful Dash 1:56.5 ($112,483), winner of the Robin Dundee Crown, the WA Oaks heat winner Askmenow 1:54.1 ($112,344) and Dashtothebeach 1:51.2 ($184,322), who is now racing successfully in America.