Racing: Rocket Spade ready to take on the Aussies in $2 million ATC Derby

Rocket Spade cruises to the line at Tauranga yesterday to complete his preparation for the Group 1 Australian Derby (2400m) next month. Photo / Trish Dunell

New Zealand Derby winner Rocket Spade is ready to take on the Aussies but they also look ready for his arrival.

Those were the joint takeaways when many of the elite staying 3-year-olds being set for the A$2 million ATC Derby in two weeks raced under vastly different circumstances on opposite sides of the Tasman yesterday.

Rocket Spade made light work of his 60.5kg topweight to win a moderate 3-year-old race at Tauranga, coming from last to cruise home for Craig Grylls over the unsuitably short 1600m.

His trainers Lance O'Sullivan and Andrew Scott were using the $25,000 race for a fitness maintainer for the Derby in Sydney which has been delayed a week and Rocket Spade proved he was not only fit enough to test the Aussies but that a busy summer hasn't gotten to the bottom of him yet.

"We didn't really know what to expect over the shorter trip but he won well," said O'Sullivan.

Rocket Spade's win continued a remarkable New Zealand season for Aussie stallion Fastnet Rock, who also sired Packing Rockstar, winner of yesterday's $100,000 feature mile at Tauranga.

Fastnet Rock's strike rate of stakes winners to starters in New Zealand this season has been sensational from small numbers, headlined by Rocket Spade and Avantage.

As dominant as Rocket Spade was when helped by the solid early tempo, the horse who sits above him in the ATC Derby market — Mo'unga — also showed he is primed for the Derby by winning the Rosehill Guineas in Sydney hours later.

The Waikato Stud-bred son of Savabeel wore down Sky Lab in the A$600,000 Group 1 and just holds favouritism for the Derby at $5 ahead of Rocket Spade at $6.

Mo'unga is, as you might expect, named after All Blacks first-five Richie Mo'unga, who also has a small racing share in the now very valuable colt.

Mo'unga the horse wasn't the only Kiwi success story on Golden Slipper day at Rosehill, as glamour mare Verry Elleegant, formerly trained and still part-owned here, beat English star Addeybb in a classic Ranvet Stakes.

Trained by Chris Waller and ridden by James McDonald, Verry Elleegant overpowered the English stayer to exact revenge on him for his two defeats of her last autumn.

The pair are set to meet again in the A$4 million Queen Elizabeth at Randwick on April 17, but by beating one of England's best performed gallopers, Verry Elleegant has shown she may not be out of place in her long-term goal, the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris in October.

It was Verry Elleegant's eighth Group 1 win and the revenge factor at the end of a stunning home stretch duel meant the world to McDonald, who rose high in the irons to honour the performance with an appropriate salute.

McDonald and Waller had combined a race earlier with another former New Zealand-trained mare Polly Grey to record her first Australian win.