A delighted Rory Hutchings after Quintessa's stunning Proisir Plate win at Ellerslie on Saturday. Photo / Kenton Wright
This was Sam Bergerson’s way of saying thanks.
And as “thank yous” go ,what Quintessa did to slingshot some of the best gallopers in the country to win the $400,000 Group 1 Proisir Plate at Ellerslie on Saturday was about as spectacular as it gets.
Just as it looked like La Crique was bravely going to claim another major, there was a blur of tangerine down the outer edge of the Ellerslie home straight. Seconds later, jockey Rory Hutchings was upright in the irons celebrating the most stunning start to our Group 1 season.
There was no surprise in the fact Quintessa could win the Proisir, she is already a Group 1 winner and a Group 3 winner and big-race player in Australia.
But when a horse draws the carpark fresh-up on a track where leaders had been skipping away to win most of the day, you can’t expect victories like this.
Brilliant, brave and baffling.
“We believed in our horse and she had been working well but the draw dented our confidence,” says Bergerson, co-trainer with Mark Walker.
“So that was amazing and we are so proud of her.” As with Quintessa, it was not Bergerson’s first Group 1 victory – but this was different. The Te Akau stable is now truly transtasman and senior training partner Mark Walker spends more of his time at the Cranbourne base.
Therefore young Bergerson, with his measured personality and ever-present smile, is the New Zealand day-to-day boss.
The huge Matamata barn is under his watch and he knows that put him in a rare position.
“It is still very much a team effort and Mark is a huge part of that, David is still very much the big boss but I realise I have been given a privileged position to be in such a senior role in an operation like this with so many good horses,” said the 31-year-old.
“Up until she won, it had been a frustrating day with our horses going really well but not being able to get a win – but that was special.
“It feels like a really great way to say thank you to everybody for putting their faith in me.”
Quintessa, who is part-owned by Warriors boss Cameron George and Kiwi league legend Stacey Jones, will now likely to be given her chance in the second leg of the spring Triple Crown at Te Rapa in three weeks, stepping up to 1600m.
“We think that 1400m to 1600m is her sweet spot but she did run fourth in an Australian Oaks, so if she goes well in the 1600m race it isn’t impossible we come back here for the Livamol next month,” says Bergerson.
While those opportunities will depend on how the five-year-old mare handles the next six weeks, it gives her at least a small shot at the Triple Crown her former stablemate Melody Belle won in 2019.
But if she is going to wear the crown, Quintessa is going to need to earn it, as the trainers of plenty of her rivals would have left Ellerslie on Saturday satisfied with their start to spring and looking forward to the last two legs.
La Crique was wonderful, while Tomodachi is a Group 1 winner in waiting after storming into third, just ahead of Sterling Express and El Vencedor, who will be one of the big improvers.
Favourite Legarto just got too far back and is another who will enjoy the step up, and maybe a return to Te Rapa, next start.
Meanwhile, it was a case of oh so close for Kiwi mare Alabama Lass in the A$750,000 ($834,700) Moir Stakes at The Valley in Melbourne on Saturday.
The Ken and Bev Kelso-trained mare hit the lead at the 200m mark in the Group 1, only to be run down on her inside by Baraqiel in the last 50m.
Alabama Lass had looked the winner after cruising to the front in what would have been an enormously valuable win for her future broodmare career, but she still proved she can run with Australia’s elite sprinters.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.