Horses I sell to Far North Queensland love the air up there.
At the Atherton meeting yesterday, their local, the three starters which I sold to Tom Hedley all won: Gaelic Lad (6g O'Reilly (NZ)-Swanette, by Danzero), his eighth win for Tom in 12 starts; In Absentia (5m Diatribe-Bolted (NZ), by Pentire (GB)), her fifth win in eight, and Vacillator (5m Diatribe-Bobbin Head (NZ), by Senor Pete (USA)), her fourth win in eight.
They're not racing for a fortune, but the bookies do operate!
Tom's trainer Roy Chillemi might have the best strike rate in Australia. Maybe even better than Gai's. It must be a bad situation fluking a really good horse up there. Placing them would have to be a fine art.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The winner of Saturday's G2 New Zealand Cup, 3200m, at Riccarton Park, Hoorang, is unlikely to shake the living daylights out of next year's Melbourne Cup but as one of the few brave enough to run this journey these days she deserves her moment of fame. She clocked a pretty respectable 3:18.11 for the journey - not bad for a supposed mudder - compared with Viewed's Melbourne Cup which, for all the vaunted firmness of the track and breakneck Irish tactics, took 3:20.40.
She has no Sir Tristram (Ire) or Zabeel (NZ) in her pedigree but carries the next best thing, Mill Reef through the male line of Shirley Heights, Darshaan and Zerpour (Ire). The Aga Khan's Zerpour, a descendant of Petite Etoile, averaged just over 22 live foals per year in his seven NZ seasons from which he's had five stakeswinners including the hard-knocking Victorian Light Vision, winner of 10 and fifth in Saturday's G2 Sandown Classic.
Hoorang's pedigree is a large reservoir of stamina. Her unraced dam is by Rhythm (USA), the good USA Mr Prospector two-year-old who turned out more an influence for stamina during his largely forgettable southern hemisphere career. Her grandam is the G1 Queensland Oaks winner Triumphal Queen (NZ) by the temperamental Ribot-line horse Triumphal March (USA) who won a G2 Moonee Valley Cup over 2800m. Then the next dams are by champion sires Agricola (GB) and Faux Tirage (GB) until you come to the fifth dam Sunbride (GB), an epochal NZ import in the '40s whose descendants dominated classic and Cup racing in the late '50s and '60s. Her own foals included Melbourne and Sydney Cup winner Straight Draw, Caulfield Cup winner Ilumquh and Sydney Cup winner General Command. Brilliant performers like Dayana, Grand Cidium and Terrific were the next generation. Unquestionably, Hoorang is what she was bred to be.
The only Sir Tristram/Zabeel to be found in the result is per medium of third placed Vickezzchardonnay who is a daughter of Don Eduardo (NZ) whose sprinter-looking son Swift Alliance made it two from two at Rosehill on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment