 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2010
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
2010 PAUL RENWICK KITCHEN & JOINERY CENTRE FREE-FOR-ALL
Baileys Dream was back in the winners circle on Friday night, for the first time since October 2008. The Brendon Hill-trained eight-year-old has had a steady return to racing since an injury put him out for a year. Since returning in February he had not won a race, however he had placed second twice behind Monkey King. Without his multiple Group 1 winning stablemate present, Baileys Dream stepped up for victory in the Group 3 Paul Renwick Kitchen & Joinery FFA at Addington.
Starting from barrier three, Hill sent Baileys Dream straight to the lead and this is where he stayed until the very end of the 2600 metre pace. Bettor’s Strike moved to sit outside of him with a lap to run with Second Wind sitting in the one-one. Baileys Dream continued to cruise out in front with sluggish sectionals, until they turned for home.
Charging toward the line, Hill sent Baileys Dream into top gear. The challengers began chasing and although they got close, they could not reach ‘Big Bad Bailey’. Second Wind got the closest as he finished only half-a-head back in second with Bettor’s Strike a neck back in third.
Eight-year-old Baileys Dream is into his seventh season of racing. Over his lifetime he has earned over $1.2million for Cavalla Bloodstock Ltd from his 67 starts. This includes 23 wins and 25 placings across NZ and Australia. The Dream Away gelding has an impressive Group race record with eight wins and 17 placings and looks set to be another dominant force for the remainder of this season’s Group racing.
Credit: HRNZ
YEAR: 2010
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
 |
Nearea Franco is about to become a mum, but you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at her. That's because her McArdle baby was transferred to a surrogate mare, who's due to foal sometime soon. And Nearea Franco celebrated her pending parenthood in the best possible fashion when she won the $40,000 Group 3 Firestone Free-For-All at Addington on Cup Day.
The mare's trainer Steven McRae described her return to form as "a long hard battle", but to see the Nearea Franco of old turn up and win as she liked on Tuesday, it's a war that McRae's obviously winning. The staff at Spreydon Lodge have had to climb not one but two mountains over the last 12 months as they strived to get their stable star back...first there was the cracked pastern she was diagnosed with just before the big mares' races in January this year, then in late August she developed what McRae says was a "pipe corn" in her near-side front hoof.
"The pastern problem had been niggling her for a long time, so it was good to finally diagnose what was troubling her and fix it," he said. "Craig Thornley always maintained that she'd never felt as good as she did when she won the Jewels back in May 2008; when the pressure went on, she didn't respond. So we knew there had to be something wrong with her. For a big horse she's got a lot of speed, but she hadn't shown it for a long time."
Safely through her recovery from the operation where screws were inserted, McRae then plotted a course for the New Zealand Cup and had Nearea Franco at the trialling stage by the start of the season. "It was after she trialled in late August that she developed the corn," he said. "And it took a long time to dig it out; Derek Jones and Grant Nyhan deserve a lot of credit for all the work they did with her. We lost three weeks because of it, though. The NZ Cup had been the main aim ever since the start of the season, because we missed away in it last year and never had a chance. But I've got too much respect for the race and the others in it to line up with just one run under her belt."
That one run was at Kaikoura in their Cup, a race which she'd won last year, and her eighth mightn't have looked any good on paper but McRae took a lot of heart from the performance. "I was rapt with her run up there. She couldn't get around the last bend, and lost momentum. Then after she got balanced and came again she got squeezed up and galloped near the post. So the run was better than it looked. The bends didn't worry her the previous year because she was in front and close to the marker pegs."
McRae confirms that the 'r' word (retirement) did come up for dicussion while Nearea Franco's career was delayed by setbacks, and it basically came down to her being given 'one more chance'. "When they took her embryo out it was about a week before she was diagnosed with the cracked pastern, so if it'd happened seven days earlier she probably would've been retired there and then. It's funny how things happen like that."
"I reackon she's as good as we've ever had her, this season. She's a happy horse, and doesn't shake all the time she's at the races anymore, and she never used to be able to hold condition either but she's really big and strong now. Probably all of that relates to the niggly pastern problem she had."
Initially McRae wasn't going to line up in Friday's Free-For-All, but post-race on Tuesday he was still toying with the idea. "I thought that three runs in ten days might've been a bit tough this early in the season, but she didn't have a hard run today and seemed to win it pretty easy so we'll keep our options open," he said.
"She'll still be served again sometime in December, and all going well will race right through to the Inter-Dominions. She's definitely going to be a hard horse to replace. It's great for the staff to have a nice horse at the races, because they get a big kick out of it. We've all enjoyed the ride though, and it's something you never take for granted either because you never know when it's going to end."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 11Nov2010