Horse racing: Real Class and Bourbon Empress shine with quick backup wins at Ellerslie

Real Class winning the Sir Patrick Hogan. Photo / Kenton Wright

The benefits of the quick backup were on display twice inside an hour of black type racing at Ellerslie yesterday.

While thoroughbred trainers spend plenty of their careers preparing horses to race with two or three-week gaps between runs to allow for maximum recovery and even aid with soundness, when the summer carnivals come around those plans often have to go out the window.

So it was with Real Class and Bourbon Express in their respective $270,000 Group 2s at Ellerslie yesterday, both backing up just six days after placing at Ellerslie on Boxing Day.

Real Class suggested she could be an Oaks player when she easily won the Sir Patrick Hogan Stakes, the first major test for the three-year-old fillies over 2000m.

Trained by part-owner Jenna Mahoney, Real Class was ridden to perfection by Rory Hutchings, back in New Zealand for the summer from New South Wales.

She is now equal second favourite at $10 for the New Zealand Oaks at Trentham in March.

That quick turnaround also seemed to suit Bourbon Empress when she blasted away with the Rich Hill Mile the same week she ran second in the Stella Artois Championship.

“She is a pretty good mare,” said trainer Stephen Marsh.

“We have done that before, gone through the Stella Artois to this race and while you need the right horse do to it I don’t mind backing them up when they are fit.”

The win was extra special for Marsh as his father Bruce, a former outstanding trainer, shares in the ownership with several mates and the US-based Bourbon Lane Stables, huge supporters of Marsh’s business.

“The Bourbon Lane guys have been wonderful and obviously to have Dad in her is a real thrill.”

That thrill could get a lot bigger come Karaka Millions night on January 25 as Bourbon Empress will now be aimed at the $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic.

“She loves it here and 1600m obviously so it looks the perfect next step.”

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.