Fierce Impact to Leneva Park For 2021

Triple Gr1 winner Fierce Impact (Deep Impact-Keiai Gerbera, by Smarty Jones) will be retired to Victoria's Leneva Park for the 2021 breeding season, reports racing.com. "We are thrilled that the ownership group, trainer Matt Smith and Mark Pilkington have put their faith in Leneva Park to carry Fierce Impact forward as a stallion and we are so excited to join them this autumn as we chase more Group 1 success together," said Leneva Park's bloodstock advisor Michael Sharkie in a statement. Trainer Matt Smith commented that Fierce Impact will likely resume for the autumn in the $1million Gr1 George Ryder Stakes, a race also won by Real Impact (Deep Impact-Tokio Reality, by Meadowlake) in 2015. "He is such a tough, hardy horse. He's a very special individual and has been perfectly sound right though his career, he just keeps getting better," Smith said. "He is a Gr1-class horse from 1400 to 2000 metres with a great turn of foot and I think he's a horse that breeders will really get behind." Fierce Impact debuted as a 2YO in the UK with a win over a mile, and also ran second in the Listed Cocked Hat Stakes at that age. Imported to Australia during his 3YO season, Fierce Impact won his second Aussie start, then kept improving to win the Gr3 Summer Cup in the spring of 2018 as a Northern Hemisphere 4YO. All up he has won five races, including the 2019 Gr1 Toorak Handicap, 2019 Gr1 Cantala Stakes and 2020 Gr1 Makybe Diva Stakes.