Yulong Stud Newmarket

Handicap (Group 1)

PUNTERS were ambushed at Flemington in Saturday’s Group 1 Newmarket Handicap. Having discounted the form out of New Zealand’s 1,200 metre Group 1 Telegraph, where Roch ‘N’ Horse was second to Levante at her previous start, the aforementioned Per Incanto mare was sent out at the cricket score odds of 100/1.

Vigour

Trained by the Flemington-based, New Zealand-born Mike Moroney, Roch ‘N’ Horse stuck to the inside of the ‘straight six’, using September Run to cart her into the race.

Full of vigour as she hit the closing stages, Roch ‘N’ Horse charged home to put down an emphatic win, a half-length the better of the Zoustar gelding The Astrologist and the Exceed And Excel September Run. The race favourite Home Affairs was exposed as the leader of the outside group, the colt weakening to finish ninth under his handicap of 56kg.

Racing in the colours of Little Avondale Stud, who passed-in Roch ‘N’ Horse on a reserve NZ$40,000 at Karaka in 2018, the win provided a maiden Group 1 for jockey Patrick Moloney.

“It’s just massive. My fiancée Jess is down here and I don’t think she’s ever seen me cry. It is just more for my family. (They’ve) put a lot of effort behind me, getting me where I am today,” said an emotional Moloney who credited Roch ‘N’ Horse’s breeder.

“The owner, Kate (Catriona Williams of Little Avondale Stud), you see she’s in a wheelchair. She bred this horse and said that ‘I wouldn’t have flown (from New Zealand) for 48 hours and struggled to get here if I didn’t think it was a chance. That filled me with confidence.”

The moment was not lost on Mike Moroney who had come close in previous Newmarket Handicaps. “This is great,” he said.

“It’s a great effort by Pam (Gerard, co-trainer with Moroney in New Zealand), she sent the horse over here. She settled in well, trialled well and had been pretty luckless not to win a Group 1 before now. I thought the New Zealand sprinters were up to it.

“A lot of people didn’t think they were, but I was pretty sure, with what I’ve seen there, that they were.”

THE US-bred Lighthouse, by Mizzen Mast, gunned down the leaders in the Group 1 Coolmore Classic for fillies and mares over Rosehill’s 1,500 metres on Saturday.

Trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, the five-year-old franked the form that had resulted in seconds at her previous two Group 1 starts.

“The first time we took her to the races she was very excited, she took a bit of calming down,” said Maher of the mare who won on her debut at Kyneton in November and has since posted five wins from eight starts in Australia for the family syndicate of L N J Foxwoods.

“They (the Foxwoods) race a lot of horses over there (in the US), and they thought they would send her out as a tester,” added Maher. “She was stakes-placed and lowly rated and she just hit the ground running. She probably goes to the other Coolmore, the Coolmore Legacy, April 9th). She carried a fair bit of weight today, so the weight-for-age conditions probably suit her.”

MONDAY’S meeting at Morphettville provided a welcome return for South Australian-born Jamie Kah who rode five winners on the nine-race card including the feature Group 2 Adelaide Cup over 3,200 metres. Kah said after landing her fifth in the Listed Morphettville Guineas: “Family and friends, it’s a very happy environment and happy day.”

With winners for five different trainers, Kah took the feature on the Phillip Stokes-trained Daqiansweet Junior by the US sire Sweet Orange who races in the blue and yellow bands of OTI Racing.

New Zealand

SUNDAY’S Ellerslie meeting was headlined by two Group 1 races on a day that farewelled racing from the Auckland track for the next 18 months.

A StrathAyr track is being installed by the newly formed Auckland Thoroughbred Racing, an amalgamation of the Auckland Racing Club and Counties Racing Club. “Our plan at this stage is 18 months but one thing I have been vocal about is that we won’t be back to race unless the track is signed off that it is ready to race,” said Auckland Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Paul Wilcox.

The club is currently working with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to decide where the club’s feature meetings are held over the next two years.

In the Group 1 Sistema Stakes for two-year-olds the aptly named Lickety Split saluted for co-trainers Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman. “We didn’t come here to run second or third, we really wanted to have a good crack at it,” said Forsman. “Matt (Cameron) rode her aggressively. He gave her every chance and she is pretty tough.” The Turn Me Loose filly defeated the Karaka Million winner Dynastic and the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes winner Maven Belle, both trained by Te Akau’s Jamie Richards.

In the Group 1 Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes over 2,000 metres, the Shamexpress mare Coventina Bay, trained by Robbie Patterson, completed a Group 1 double, begun by her Herbie Dyke Stakes win a month earlier.

Rounding out the final group race at Ellerslie for the foreseeable future, Uareastar, a Jakkalberry mare took out the Group 2 Auckland Cup over 3,200 metres for trainer Fraser Auret who prepares the five-year-old out of a paddock.