The first Wednesday of the spring was a successful day for us with our two runners both victorious.
Things kicked off with Vin de Dance in a 1200m Maiden at Pukekohe Park this morning. After jumping evenly, he was pushed forward by jockey Matthew Cameron to take the lead. From there, he was able to fight off strong competition at the 200m, to go on to score an impressive victory by 1.5 lengths. After showing promise in his jump outs, the Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman trained three-year-old was able to transfer that talent to the races in his debut run. What made the victory even more impressive was that we expect he will be a much better horse once he gets a firmer surface and over a further distance.
Stone Warrior was our Australian victor, winning in a 1400m Benchmark 70 at Sandown Park this afternoon. In the run, he sat 4 lengths behind the leader, which is a lot closer than the position he usually takes up. At the 400m, jockey Daniel Moor got clear room and from there was able to fight off the horse on his inside who was also running on strongly, to win by half a length. Similarly to Vin de Dance, the win was made even more impressive by the fact that he prefers the tracks to be firmer and today’s distance was a touch short for him, so he will only get better once he steps out to further distances this campaign. He has also shown a tendency in starts prior not to enjoy racing inside other horses, so this was a promising win indeed. The Anthony Freedman trained five-year-old notched up what was his third victory in Australia and hopefully it is the first of many this campaign.
Congratulations to all connections involved and hopefully we can continue this form going into the weekend.
