Velocious wins Te Rapa sprint feature and now has Brisbane race in sight

Velocious winning the Jarvis Trading (1100m) at Te Rapa on Saturday. Photo / Race Images

Group 1 winner Velocious bounced back to her brilliant best in the Jarvis Trading (1100m) at Te Rapa on Saturday, raising the possibility of a transtasman mission.

The Stephen Marsh-trained filly was New Zealand’s champion 2-year-old last season, when she won four of her six starts including the Karaka Million 2YO (1200m) and the Group 1 Sistema Stakes (1200m).

Her 3-year-old season has been an up-and-down journey for her connections. There was a wind operation in the spring, then a smart first-up win at Te Aroha in March, then a luckless run in the Group 3 Cambridge Breeders’ Stakes (1200m) and a disappointing fifth after a costly slow start at Ellerslie last Saturday.

Marsh and owners Go Racing decided to roll the dice and run Velocious in Saturday’s $40,000 sprint feature on a seven-day turnaround, and the gamble paid off.

Velocious jumped much better and her jockey Michael McNab took up a handy position in third along the fence as Shoes and Illicit Dreams showed the way through the early stages.

Shoes rolled off the rail in the home straight and opened up a dream run for Velocious. McNab drove the Written Tycoon filly through that gap and she showed her true colours, dashing to the front and winning by a length from Shoes and Pokuru Gold.

“That was great to see,” Marsh said. “We had been thinking about taking her to Australia, but we wanted a better result than that last-start run at Ellerslie to give us the confidence to have a crack at Brisbane.

“We saw a nice week of weather leading into Te Rapa and a suitable race today, and we saw how well the filly came through her last-start run. We thought, ‘Bugger it, let’s back her up and see how she goes.’ It worked out perfectly.

“She was her own worst enemy at Ellerslie. She was the first one loaded into the gates and did a lot wrong and ended up getting too far off them against a good field. I think she might also have resented the crossover nose band, which came off today.

“This performance was exactly what we were hoping to see. I briefly thought she might be hesitant to take the gap in the straight, but then she quickened through it. I think that might be a real confidence boost for her.”

Marsh is now keen to give Velocious a shot at the Queensland Winter Carnival.

“Depending on how she comes through this, there’s a race at Eagle Farm in a couple of weeks that might be worth having a really good look at,” he said.

That potential target is the A$200,000 Listed Queensland Day Stakes (1200m), for 3-year-olds at set weights, which will be run on June 7.

Velocious was bred by Inglewood Stud and offered in its draft in Book 1 of Karaka 2023, where Go Racing bought her for $190,000. She has now had 12 starts for six wins, a placing and $980,550 in stakes.

– LOVERACING.NZ News Desk