Racing: Planet Rock crushes rivals' hopes

Riccarton co-trainer Peter Williams admits he was "off his tucker" on Friday night, the gravity of Planet Rock's next-day assignment at Ellerslie finally hitting home.

But his pre-race nerves were nothing compared with the tension felt by the owners, Ashburton's Sarah Green and her Holland-based pal Ger Beemsterboer.

They had splurged $290,000 - $230,000 over their budget - on the Fastnet Rock filly who was on a do-or-die mission to qualify for New Zealand's richest 2-year-old race at the end of the month.

With just $3000 in stakes from her sole start in early December, Planet Rock desperately needed Saturday's $6400 winner's purse to be assured of a chance to run for the $550,500 first prize in the Karaka Million at Ellerslie on January 30.

She did a little more than that, as it turned out, for her relieved camp at the weekend.

In crushing the Karaka Million hopes of many of her Countdown To Karaka Million rivals, she also cruised into early favouritism for New Zealand's richest juvenile race, such was the domination of her one-and-three-quarter-length win for rider Michael Coleman.

Any other day, any other race, second-placed Heza Rebel would probably have won, and with it sealed a Karaka Million run himself.

Out of time now to qualify, instead all Matamata trainer Lance Noble could do was shrug and concede he had run into an exceptionally good filly, clearly superior on the day.

Planet Rock is now 11th in the order of entry for the 14-horse field with $9400 in stakes.

Even with the 10,000-1 possibility of the first five home in the group two $85,000 Wakefield Challenge Stakes at Trentham next Saturday leap-frogging her in the entry order, she's still assured of a Karaka Million run.

At least two of the runners ahead of her in stake earnings so far, Bespoke and Aussie Isle Be Ready, are reputedly doubtful starters.

Williams will now leave Planet Rock in the care of Ardmore trainer Stephen McKee until the Karaka Million, when racing rookie Beemsterboer is also booked to make the first of his biannual trips to New Zealand.

Inspired by her father Bryan Meads' lifetime of racing involvement as an owner-trainer, Green roped Beemsterboer - a client of her husband Chris' Ashburton grain and seed business - into partnership.

She picked Williams and his wife, Dawn, as their trainers because a "friend of a friend" had told them there was no one better in the South Island.

Ironically, Peter Williams already had a link with Green; Meads was his Ashburton landlord when he prepared 1988 Auckland Cup winner Sea Swift.

Green and Beemsterboer also raced Sir Frankie, a four-race winner, with the Williams, and more recently Red Ray, a promising 3-year-old first-up winner last spring.

With the owners' racing interests rapidly expanding - Green now runs a small agistment property on the outskirts of Ashburton - they dispatched Peter Williams to the Karaka yearling sale last year with a $60,000 budget to buy a Karaka Million winner. That ceiling soon went out the window, however, when the leggy Fastnet Rock filly from the Wellfield Lodge draft walked into the main auction arena. Green was right next to Williams egging him on to go higher.

"We looked at quite a few fillies at that sale, but from the moment we saw her, there were no others for us," said Green.

Planet Rock finished second, beaten just a long neck, on debut at Trentham. She didn't help herself by being slow away and then trapped three wide in transit.

She also had the misfortune to run into another subsequent Karaka Million favourite, Super Easy, who was beaten a lip in his next start by Anabandana in the group three Eclipse Stakes at Ellerslie on New Year's Day.

"You don't get to train too many like this very often," said Williams of Planet Rock on Saturday.

"She's not a natural 2-year-old; the further she goes the better she'll go, but what do you do?

Even before her Ellerslie effort, Williams rated Planet Rock the only juvenile who could hold a torch to his previous best baby, Richfield Lass.

She ran third for Williams in the 1991 Matamata Breeders' Stakes, a "certainty beaten" after missing the jump.

The filly was sold two starts later to connections of Bart Cummings' stable where she was renamed Richfield Lady and won the VRC Oaks the same year.

Green said she would be back prowling the Karaka lots with Williams and co-owner Beemsterboer at the end of the month looking for a follow-up act to Planet Rock.

Beemsterboer has yet to see Planet Rock race but he got a taste of the excitement in store on January 30 during a late night phone call from Green relaying the Saturday commentary to him in Holland from the grandstand.

"She was so far back I told him that I didn't think she was going to do it [win]," said Green.

"But then she sprinted home with so much natural ability.

"There was not much talking after that - I dropped the phone and started screaming."