RACING: Breeding doesn't always pay dividends

RICHARD EDMUNDS
GOOD breeding doesn't always guarantee racing success.
For example, you need to look no further than Snaafi Dancer, a son of champion sire Northern Dancer, who in 1985 was the first horse ever to reach the US$10 million ($12.75m) mark at the yearling sales.
It took only a couple of days for his trainer to decide that he was too slow to race, and he later proved to be infertile at stud.
And then there's the US$16 million purchase, The Green Monkey, whose lack of success on the racetrack to date has been a source of great amusement throughout the United States.
But sometimes well-bred horses do live up to expectations, as was the case on two occasions on Friday's race meeting at Waipukurau.
The day's feature race, the Agri-Lab Products Metric Mile, was won by the Hawke's Bay-trained Shostakovich, a son of Stravinsky and New Zealand Derby-winning mare Popsy, as a result a half-brother to excellent mare Lilakyn.
While perhaps his record is not quite as strong as would be expected for a horse of his pedigree, Shostakovich has been a consistent performer over the last couple of years and was an impressive and well-deserved winner. Before Friday's race, his biggest win was in an $8000 race at Hastings in October 2006 in which the winner of the New Zealand Cup in November, Everswindell, finished third.
Shostakovich was well ridden by Darryl Bradley and was a convincing winner despite the very narrow margin ahead of the second-placed favourite Flirtee, with Rhyme just over a length away in third place.
The other royally-bred winner on the day was two year-old filly Te Akau Coup, a comfortable winner of the Ruahine Motors Ford Juvenile.
While the field was small and lacking in exposed form, the way in which the Mark Walker-trained filly pricked her ears and cantered away to win by two-and-a-half lengths suggested that there are almost certainly bigger things in store.
Other highlights of the day were a dominant four-length win in the first race by Woodville-trained mare Pending and a comfortable victory in the last by Our Jubilee, who is fairly well-bred herself in being a full sister to Group 1 winner Mi Jubilee.
With results like these four, and that half of the races run on the day required a photo finish to decide the winner, Friday's race meeting was a day of exciting racing action.