In a great feel-good story, hobby breeder Paul Lanskey and Kitchwin Hills manager Mick Malone realised a life-long dream when Inglis Classic Sale graduate Vow And Declare won Tuesday’s Gr1 Melbourne Cup at Flemington (see below report). Lanskey raced Vow And Declare’s dam Geblitzt “with a few mates’’ and when her racing days were over, decided to breed with her. Her first foal – by Star Witness – raced as Lycurgus, himself a $70,000 Inglis Easter purchase who became a stakes winner. By Declaration of War, Vow and Declare was sent to the final Classic Yearling Sale at Newmarket in 2017 as part of the Kitchwin Hills draft – would go on and race as Vow And Declare. “It’s unbelievable, it really is,’’ Lanskey said. “By the time he got to Classic, Danny had seen that Lycurgus was starting to show him plenty so he said he thought he could put something together. “Geoff Corrigan, the senior owner of Lycurgus came in for 35% and then another 15% and the rest is really family, my sons, nephews, my partner. It’s amazing. You can’t explain this feeling. It’s phenomenal.’’ The Melbourne Cup result continued an extraordinary sequence of success for Inglis, with no fewer than 10 individual stakes-winning graduates across four different countries since Saturday.
