| FEATURE RACE COMMENT |
YEAR: 2009
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If you didn't think "wow" after Kiwi Ingenuity's win in the Pelorus Classic at Waterlea, the word would've almost certainly popped into mind when she demolished the Premier Mares Championship field at Addington last Friday night. Because, quite simply, Kiwi Ingenuity was breathtaking.
Keen out of the gate despite her wide draw, as was the case at Blenheim, the Christian Cullen mare was finally given her head by trainer/driver Robbie Holmes rounding the bend into the front straight the first time. She exploded forward in search of the lead, with arch-rival Nearea Franco matching strides with her on her inside; by the time the pair had crossed to the marker pegs starting the last lap, Kiwi Ingenuity had won the battle for the lead. Everyone knew she had spent some serious petrol getting there though...such exertion has to take its toll eventually, so she'll come back to the field for sure.
No, not this girl. If anything Kiwi Ingenuity pushed the pedal down further along the back straight, and when Holmes pulled the plugs at the 350m mark he felt the mare surge yet again. Nearea Franco and the chasing pack never looked like bridging the gap in the run to the line, and at the post Kiwi Ingenuity was nearly two lengths clear as the clock stopped at a blistering 2:20.9 - a 1:56 mile rate over 1950 metres. The $50,000 Group 2 Caduceus Club of Canterbury event had been 'over' a long way from the finish.
"At Waterlea, I was just a passenger down the back - and it was the same again tonight," said Holmes, who's in awe of the mare himself. "She was a nice 3-year-old, but she has just got so big in the chest this time in...almost like a stallion. And she's just an amazing, free-wheeling front-runner," he said, remembering back to how the Southland Oaks and NZ Oaks last season were both won in such fashion. "She would sprint for a half if you asked her to, and probably cover it in fifty-four or fifty-five."
Bred by Hamish Scott, Dr Kim Lawson and their company Equine Investments Ltd, they are joined in the ownership of Kiwi Ingenuity by close friend Abby Smith. The 4-year-old mare's now won them over $213,000, the return from seven victories and four placings in 13 appearances. An enviable record in itself, it is even more menacing considering she has drawn the 'ace' only once - and all her other marbles have been seven or worse.
"I'm really pleased for Hamish," Holmes said. "Because he is a breeder, and only a breeder really. They had a few offers for this mare early on, but he's always been a 'keeper'; it's like she is part of the family.
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 28Jan09
YEAR: 2010
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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
YEAR: 2011
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| De Lovely (inner) beating Nearea Franco |
Red-hot favourites usually win by more than a pencil line. So De Lovely gave those who backed her into $1.20 plenty of reasons to panic as she scraped home by the barest of margins at Addington on Friday night.
But don't blame De Lovely - point the finger at Nearea Franco, because she and Craig Thornley did such a sterling job of pacemaking in the $80,000 Group 1 PGG Wrightson NZ Breeders Stakes that they almost stole the unstealable. After all, just under a week earlier De Lovely had zoomed past the winner of our last two New Zealand Cups and won under a hold by nearly two lengths. Six days later she needed a good couple of cuts with the whip from David Butcher to nab Nearea Franco on the line. And only just got there.
The two great mares were clearly superior to their eight other rivals, proved in no uncertain terms by the seven and a half length margin back to Lancome in third place after torrid final sectionals of 56.2 and 27.5. But for De Lovely it'll go down as another victory in her brilliant career, the 15th time she's saluted in 24 appearances, good for nearly $650,000 in stakes for the Les Girls No.2 Syndicate who bred and race the 4-year-old daughter of Falcon Seelster and Copper Beach.
De Lovely's only defeat in 12 starts since May last year came in the Group 2 Premier Mares Championship on January 21, her third to Beaudiene Bad Babe that night denying her the chance to join Kiwi Ingenuity(2009), It's Ella(2007), Mainland Banner(2006), Coburg(2004), Kym's Girl(2000), Lento(1996), Blossom Lady(1993 & 1991), Gina Rosa(1989) and Bionic Chance(1988) on the coveted list of those who have won the two big Addington mares' features in the same season.
Credit: John Rpbinson writing in HRWeekly 16Feb 2011