Granite Bluff's strong 1.5 lengths win in this week’s Coonabarabran Cup over 1600m confirms the 6-year-old gelding as a NSW country cups king of early 2011-12 racing.

Since the beginning of August, this son of the dashing Danzero product Marechal has raced in five races, all Cups, and besides Coonabarabran has been successful in the Forbes Cup, second in the Dubbo Cup and third in the Cootamundra Cup.

Raced by the Clarke family of Braidwood with Richard Clarke as the trainer, Granite Bluff has appeared 43 times for nine wins, nine seconds and six thirds. Earlier efforts have included a win in the Orange Cup, seconds in the Cowra Cup and Gundagai Cup and a third in the Queanbeyan Cup.

He is one of a number of performers to suggest that his sire Marechal is excellent value at his 2011 fee of $2,200 at Louise Ellis’s Argyle Thoroughbreds stud at Panuara near Orange, NSW. He was transferred to Argyle this year by owner Rick Worthington after a stint at Rockhampton in Queensland and earlier at the now dispersed Riverdene stud at Wagga Wagga.

All his runners to date were got at Riverdene and include Granite King, Grand Duels (10 wins, four Listed stakes; two Group 1 thirds at Flemington, the Newmarket Handicap and Lightning Stakes), Girls Go Racing (seven wins, three in Sydney), Klish Klash (6 wins), Gandarf the White (6), Eripsni (5), Waterfront Drama (12), Koolkanna Road (11, six in Darwin), Disrepute (9) and Century Hill (8).