Hastings-trained Maria Dior sticks out her neck to claim a half-head win over Desert Magic. Photo / Supplied
Hastings stables were only lightly represented at this year's annual Wairoa meeting compared to previous years but managed to pick up one win over the two days.
The Patrick Campbell-trained Maria Dior took out the opening event on the first day, coming from off the pace to get up in the last stride for a half-head victory in a $12,000 Rating 72 race over 1300m.
It was the Rip Van Winkle mare's third win from 16 starts and she has also chalked up three seconds and three fourths for her Hastings owner-breeder Chris Russell.
Maria Dior had been freshened since her last start fifth over 1200m at Trentham on January 11 and had the services of top woman jockey Samantha Collett when she stepped out at Wairoa on Thursday last week.
Normally a frontrunner, Maria Dior dwelt slightly at the start and had to be hunted up to take a prominent early position. She then looked under pressure coming to the home turn but, once Collett angled her into the clear, she finished the race off strongly to get up and snatch a half-head victory over Desert Magic.
Collett said later that it was only in the last five strides, when Maria Dior saw the horse inside her, that she really put in some big bounds.
Maria Dior is out of the Redoute's Choice mare Dorotea Dior, a horse that was also trained at Hastings by Patrick Campbell and who only had nine starts for two wins, two seconds and a third.
She is also the dam of the winners Donna Beel, O'Reilly's Choice and Jonny Russ while Chris Russell now has an unraced 2-year-old gelding by Reliable Man out of the mare coming on.
"Since she produced the Reliable Man two-year-old she has missed getting in foal to Rip Van Winkle and unfortunately slipped a foal to Preferment but is now back in foal to Preferment again," Chris Russell said this week.
The Hastings training partnership of Paul Nelson and Corrina McDougal has had the misfortune to lose the promising jumper Look Out, with the horse having to be put down after suffering a broken leg in a paddock accident earlier this month.
Look Out was one of several horses Paul and Carol Nelson and their staff had to shift from small paddocks close to their house to a bigger one further back after a raging fire threatened to engulf their property in the first week of February.
"The fire had started on a property opposite us but had jumped the road and we were told to evacuate," Nelson recalled last Sunday.
"I told them we are not leaving until we shift our horses to a big paddock at the back which we did.
"One of the other horses must have kicked Look Out at some stage after that. He only had a small nick on his leg, but it was broken."
The Nelsons also lost a young horse by Niagara, after it was tangled in a fence.
Look Out was the winner of six races from only 26 starts and had also recorded four seconds and a third.
He looked to have a promising career as a jumper after winning his hurdle debut by 1-1/2 lengths over 3000m at Rotorua in September last year.
Successful jumps jockey Aaron Kuru was aboard Look Out for that hurdle victory and rated him a top jumper in the making.
Kuru also rode Look Out to two of his five wins on the flat and, on another occasion, the Nom de Jeu y-year-old lumped 70kg to win the Duke Of Gloucester Cup (2200m) for amateur riders at Waverley last winter.
Look Out was raced by a syndicate made up of Hawke's Bay and Manawatu people that included Paul Nelson and the horse's owner-breeder Gary Freeman.
Plushenko, part-owned by Hastings woman Irene Downey and her son Josh, chalked up the second win of his career when he dead-heated for first with Capellani in a Rating 65 race over 1900m on the first day of last week's Wairoa meeting.
The Downeys are part of a syndicate that races Plushenko from the Waiuku stable of Grant and Tana Shaw.
The Rock 'N' Pop 5-year-old has had 24 starts for two wins, two seconds, three thirds and five fourths. His maiden success came over 1600m at Te Rapa in December.
Capellani looked the likely outright winner of the Wairoa race when jockey Cameron Lammas shot him to the front half-way down the home straight. But Plushenko, ridden by apprentice Ashvin Goindasamy, made a desperate late lunge and the two horses crossed the line locked together.
Avantage, part-owned by Waipukurau's Michael Ormsby, chalked up her third Group 1 success when she took out the $200,000 Haunui Farm Weight-for-age at Otaki last Saturday.
The Fastnet Rock mare recorded her first success at the elite level when winning the Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes (1400m) as a 2-year-old and then added a second when taking out last month's Telegraph Sprint (1200m) at Trentham.
Ormsby is part of the Te Akau Avantage Syndicate that races Avantage from the Matamata stable of Jamie Richards and also has shares in other Te Akau syndicates.
Avantage has now had 16 starts for nine wins, three seconds and a third and has amassed more than $1.3million in stakes, an outstanding return on the $210,000 Te Akau principal David Ellis outlayed to buy the then yearling filly at the 2017 Karaka sales.
Last Saturday's Group 1 race at Otaki resulted in a domination by the Te Akau stable of Jamie Richards as it produced a one-two finish in the feature, with Avantage staving off a late challenge from stablemate Prise De Fer to win by three-quarters of a length.
Danielle Johnson settled Avantage three back on the inner and bided her time until just before turning into the home straight.
While most riders skirted wide on their mounts rounding the turn, Johnson saved valuable lengths by sticking to just a couple of horse-widths off the rail and found herself in front soon after straightening for the run home.
Johnson, who had been aboard the Fastnet Rock mare when she took out the Group 1 Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes (1400m) as a two-year-old, admitted a conversation with Richards before the race had helped her to make the decision to follow an inside path.
"She's pretty quirky but the team do a good job with her and she has delivered the goods today," Johnson said.
"I had a chat to Jamie and watching some of the previous races they haven't been coming too wide, so we opted to stay in a little and it's paid off.
"I was mindful not to go too soon on her as it was a mile today so I had to count to ten which jockeys aren't too good at.
"I did have a few thoughts go through my head when I saw the tangerine (Prise De Fer) outside me and they weren't too pleasant, but we still won."
New Zealand trainer Clayton Chipperfield is brimming with confidence as he prepares class colt Catalyst for a repeat clash with outstanding Australian-trained Alligator Blood in tomorrow's A$1million Australian Guineas (1600m) at Flemington.
In a race that will go down as one of the best clashes in recent racing history, Alligator Blood prevailed by a short head over Catalyst in the Group 3 C S Hayes Stakes (1400m) on the Flemington track a fortnight ago after the two horses went head-to-head for the entire length of the long home straight.
In the much-hyped rematch, Catalyst has been installed the $2.60 favourite ahead of his bigger opponent, who is a $3 chance in what is a deep field, with plenty of potential wildcards that could spoil the match race.
The big thing in Catalyst's favour this time is that he will meet Alligator Blood at even weights after having to concede the Queensland champ a kilogram when they last met.
Alligator Blood's trainer David Vandyke, whilst happy with his horse's condition and progress since his last start win, is mindful that the All Too Hard gelding has raced or trialled every month since July last year which could be a taxing factor.
Catalyst has also been in work for the entire season and has been racing since September but has had his races well-spaced by his Te Awamutu trainer Clayton Chipperfield.
"I think he is getting better," Chipperfield said of Catalyst.
"I gave him a run along on Saturday and I think he has definitely improved."
The former jumps jockey-turned-trainer believes track conditions should be a lot more suitable for his charge this weekend.
"With the downgrade of the track and the rain on the day, we didn't see that brilliance last-start, but we have never seen him in a dogfight either, so to see him do that and not lie down certainly gives us a bit more confidence," he said.
Catalyst will be ridden by Damian Lane in tomorrow's assignment, his third jockey in as many starts, but Chipperfield doesn't believe that will be an issue.
"I am sure James (McDonald) and Damian had a good chat after the Hayes," Chipperfield said.