Horse racing: Cambridge Stud savours Champagne success

Lucy In The Sky winning the Listed Champagne Stakes (1200m) at Riccarton on Saturday. Photo / Race Images South

Lucy In The Sky made history on Saturday as the winner of the first stakes race run on a synthetic track in New Zealand, but Cambridge Stud had other reasons to savour the talented filly‘s victory in the Listed Berkley Stud Champagne Stakes (1200m).

Bred and raced by Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay, Lucy In The Sky is a first-crop daughter of the stud’s exciting shuttle stallion Hello Youmzain. On Saturday, she became his first stakes winner in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Tony Pike-trained Lucy In The Sky showed bright promise in the North Island earlier this year. She scored an impressive front-running win on debut at Ellerslie on February 22, then returned to the same venue two weeks later for a close and highly creditable sixth in the Group 1 Sistema Stakes (1200m).

Pike later set his sights on an autumn black-type success in Saturday’s Champagne Stakes at Riccarton, and the Cambridge trainer breathed a sigh of relief when the Pattern Committee ruled on the Friday that the $80,000 feature would retain its Listed status, despite a weather-enforced switch from the turf to the Polytrack.

Lucy In The Sky drew gate seven in an eight-horse field and broke only fairly from the starting gate. But jockey Jasmine Fawcett allowed her to stride forward, taking the lead and crossing to the rail within the first 200m.

The $1.30 favourite controlled the race from there and was travelling easily coming up to the home turn.

Te Akau Racing filly Queen’s Evidence briefly loomed as a threat on her outside coming into the straight, but Lucy In The Sky quickened again and left her behind. She dashed to victory by a length and three-quarters, with Queen’s Evidence finishing another four lengths clear of the third-placed Alottago. Lucy In The Sky clocked 1m 09.77s for the 1200m.

“Tony Pike asked me if I’d come down here to ride her today and it was an absolute no-brainer,” Fawcett said.

“She’s still a bit green – she changed legs early in the race and actually jumped a shadow. But she’s a class horse and she still managed to get the job done. I was confident turning for home that she was going to put them away easily.”

Lucy In The Sky has now had three starts for two wins, earning $77,250 in stakes.

Pike was pleased to add valuable black type to the filly’s CV, while the trip down to Christchurch – albeit to race on a different surface – will also hold her in good stead ahead of a potential Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m) campaign in the spring.

“We came down here to try to get a stakes win on the board, so it’s mission accomplished in that sense,” Pike said. “She’ll also go down in history as the first horse to win a black-type race on the synthetic [track] in New Zealand.

“She’s a really nice filly who ran in a Group 1 race up north. She still has a bit to learn, so it’s all positive heading into her 3-year-old season. I think the best two fillies ran the quinella today and have the makings of good 3-year-olds.

“Our filly had to work a bit to get across and lead, but she’s done it well. I told Jasmine to just allow her to get into rhythm, which she did.

“There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge yet, but it would be great to see her back here in November for the 1000 Guineas.”

Lucy In The Sky and Queen’s Evidence continued a dominant run for fillies in the Champagne Stakes. They have now won 10 of the last 11 runnings, with the only exception coming from Te Akau gelding Discretion Rules last year.

Before that, the winners were Illicit Dreams (2023), Diss Is Dramatic (2022), Unusual Countess (2021), All About Magic (2019 – race not run in 2020), Secret Allure (2018), Prom Queen (2017), Zigwig (2016), Peach Cove (2015) and Elusive Catch (2014).

– LOVERACING.NZ News Desk