Sunday, February 24, 2008

Two new stars of the Australian turf

It's not every race day that you come across outstanding performances by young horses, but yesterday's Blue Diamond Stakes meeting resulted in the emergence of two young potential stars. First there was Light Fantastic's run in the Group 2 Perri Cutten Cup, where he won in sensational fashion, nudging out his stable mate Vivacious Spirit to win by a length. He is a handsome 3 year old grey gelding and it was only his third start. His racing debut was only four weeks ago on a country track on which occasion he won by several lengths. He also won his second start last week at Moonee Valley, scoring by two lengths. Of course the racing media has gone into rave mode since his win yesterday, but he does look to be a genuine potential star. Anyway, it sure will be interesting following his career from now on.

The other sensation of the day, was Weekend Hussler's win in the Oakleigh Plate, where he demolished his older rivals with an easy win. The Hussler was the star three year old performer last spring, and it appears he has come back better than ever. His trainer has always said he is the best horse he's ever trained. He may well be right.

New Zealand mare Princess Coup also caused a flurry when she won the St George Stakes against a strong field, which included group one winners, Maldivian, Mentality, Fuimicino and Magnus. Maldivian, despite starting favourite yet again, put in a shocker of a performance which doesn't encourage me to regard him as anything special, not that I ever thought him a truly first class performer anyway.

After all the excitement of the earlier races, the Blue Diamond itself was an anti climax. It was won by Reaan, a son of Hussonet, as is Weekend Hussler. I was however impressed by the run of Burgeis, who finished a close third.

So all in all it was great day to watch the races on television and I'm glad to have found another favourite to follow in Light Fantastic and also his stable mate, the filly Vivacious Spirit who was certainly not disgraced by her defeat.

2 comments:

Garry said...

Just stumbled across your site and saw the comment about burgeis, i was given a tip about this horse several weeks ago, the tip was to watch him in the upcoming golden slipper and lead up races!

So had a few dollars each way yesterday!

Now I found your blog, I'll have a read of some of your other post.

Garry

Anne S said...

Garry, I follow the horses but rarely bet. There are lots of other racing posts on this blog if you care to read them. Just click on the label "horse racing" and the others will be displayed.