Railway Stakes (Group 1)

ANNABEL Neasham and Rob Archibald made a successful trip across the country to Perth, taking out the A$1.5 million Group 1 Railway Stakes at Ascot with the Better Than Ready colt Port Lockroy on Saturday.

The Sydney-based training duo had Port Lockroy coming into the race off a close up sixth in the Golden Eagle on November 2nd and elected to use local rider Clint Johnston-Porter for the 1,200m handicap, delivering horse and jockey a maiden success at the highest level.

“It’s going to take a couple of weeks to sink in,” said Johnston-Porter. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for a very long time and I was stiff last season not to get one, so to get one on the board, it’s just massive.”

Settling forward in a capacity field of 16, Port Lockroy had a clear sight of the finish line on straightening. With just two on his inside to overhaul, the colt hit the front 150m out and broke clear to hold a length on the line, ahead of a wall of horses as the Playing God gelding Comfort Me took second ahead of the Super One filly Super Smink.

“I thought he got him into a lovely spot,” said Archibald. “We said to the jockey just try to begin well, because he’s a casual customer and he can get a bit back in his races and fly home. He just couldn’t have been any better, he pushed forward, got outside the leader and relaxed beautifully. CJ couldn’t have done any more, it was a super ride.”

The $300,000 Magic Million Gold Coast yearling’s previous best was a Group 3 second. The Better Than Ready colt now has three wins and five placings for his ownership syndicate, headed by Go Bloodstock.

SAFFIE Osborne has landed her first winner at her sixth Australian race ride, taking out Sunday’s A$200,000 Kilmore Cup over 1,600m with Cosmic Vega.

The race was run on a ‘heavy 9’ track a day after temperatures had soared across the State to 35 celsius. Bred in Ireland and an Owenstown Stud Stakes winner at Naas when trained by Tracey Collins and Michael Halford at Conyngham Lodge, the win was Cosmic Vega’s first from four starts since joining the stables of Ciaron Maher.

“It’s like being back in England, covered in all this mud,” said Osborne post-race. “It’s really nice getting the monkey off the back in a nice race. The key today was just to make sure he settled well.

“This horse has good form on soft ground back in Ireland and, being by Lope De Vega, they seem to flourish on it. He had heaps left in the home straight, it was just about getting the gaps at the right time. It’s nice to reward his (Maher’s) faith in me.”

THE Ciaron Maher stable swept the key prizes in Sydney and Melbourne on Saturday, winning a pair of A$1 million races.

At Kembla Grange, the stable were successful with Gringotts in the Group 3 Gong over 1,600m. The Per Incanto gelding lumped 60kg to victory, having been sent out a short-priced favourite after winning the $3 million Big Dance at his previous start.

“He’ll keep improving,” said assistant trainer Johann Gerard-Dubord. “He’s done a very good job in this preparation, but he’ll be a proper horse going forward.”

Twenty minutes earlier, the stable had Nadal, also sporting the navy, blue and pale yellow spots of syndicate manager Ozzie Kheir, find the line as winner of the A$1 million Meteorite over 1,200m at Cranbourne.

The Xtravagant colt won comfortably by three lengths. “We’ve always had a lot of faith in him,” said stable representative Adrian Joyce. “He’s a really nice horse and a beautiful individual as well.”

WINX foaled a Snitzel colt early Monday morning, with mare and foal reported to be doing well. The colt, Winx’s second live foal, is a half-brother to the Pierro filly that part-owner Debbie Kepitis bought back into for a record A$10 million when consigned by Coolmore at Inglis’ Sydney Easter sale in April.

“We’re ecstatic,” said part-owner Peter Tighe. “It’s something very special, because Snitzel is getting on a bit in age now, he can’t go on forever. So we’re glad we were able to get her pregnant to him and have a beautiful colt,” adding that the Street Cry mare was three weeks overdue.

“She was under constant vet supervision, the team at Coolmore are second to none,” added Tighe.

New Zealand

LAST week’s New Zealand Bloodstock Ready To Run Sale has set new records, with a 10% increase on last year’s aggregate as the sale grossed NZ$38,593,500.

Across the two sessions, 254 horses were sold from 324 offered at a clearance rate of 75%, with an average of $151,943 and a median of $90,000.

The major highlight was on day one, when an Australasian record for a two-year-old at auction was set as the I Am Invincible colt out of the Savabeel mare Shillelagh sold for $1,650,000 to Te Akau Racing.

The colt was offered by Kiltannon Stables, the enterprise of Mark and Lorraine Forbes, who first met at the Irish National Stud more than a decade earlier. The pair later worked at Cambridge Stud before making their NZB Ready To Run debut in 2014.