Racing: Rivals left chasing a shadow

Blue Shadow and Sam Spratt are well clear at Te Rapa yesterday. Photo / Trish Dunell

Hot prospect Blue Shadow closed out her three-year-old campaign in style with a runaway success at Te Rapa yesterday.

The daughter of Dalghar was untroubled by the outside gate in yesterday's McMillan Equine Feeds 1200 and she didn't need to find top gear to win in a canter.

"She's very good, she's special," Cambridge trainer Graeme Hughes said. "It's a bit frightening really. She's an exciting sprinter and we're looking forward to the future."

Blue Shadow finished fifth in her April debut and she then broke her maiden at Matamata before beating a tidy line-up of three-year-olds at Te Rapa last month.

Her return to the Hamilton track on Saturday produced the best performance of her fledgling career.

She showed good gate speed to cross the field to lead and travelled comfortably to the turn.

When rider Sam Spratt asked Blue Shadow to lengthen stride on straightening they coasted clear to score by nearly five lengths.

"I'm very happy with her, she's done everything right and this is her last start," Hughes said. "She can have a break now until the spring."

Mystery Show, who earlier this season placed in the group three Gold Trail Stakes and the Listed Soliloquy Stakes, was a distant second ahead of last season's Listed Trevor Eagle Memorial winner Alamer.

Meanwhile, Andrew Campbell has good reason to consider doubling his hand in the closing black type two-year-old event of the season.

The Opaki trainer has the Listed Ryder Stakes on July 29 on the programme of Waldorf and he will also now give thought to Getty joining his stablemate in the Otaki feature.

The former finished a close third when resuming at Te Rapa on yesterday while the latter made an impressive start to his career at Trentham with a strong front-running win in the Platinum Homes Taranaki 2YO Maiden.

- NZ Racing Desk