News

Snitzerland And Second Effort Claim Early Season Features

18th Aug 2012

Early 2012/13 Australian racing season features fell the way of Snitzerland and Second Effort in very different conditions on Saturday, which marked the start of many Group 1 spring ambitions for gallopers in Sydney and Melbourne.

Snitzerland back with a bang in her Classic year

Golden Slipper runner-up Snitzerland (pictured) was back with a bang in her Classic year, dominating the 2012/13 Australian racing season’s opening Group 3 event for three-year-olds, the ATC San Domenico Stakes in Sydney.

Snitzerland ($125,000 2011 Premier, 3f Snitzel-Monte Rosa) jumped straight to the front from the 1100m start at Rosehill Gardens and was never headed. The Gerald Ryan trained speedster dashed away turning into the straight to stroll to 1.8 length victory over Driefontein and highly-rated colt All Too Hard, which missed the start and was always going to struggle to catch the winner which clocked 33.57seconds for the last 600m.

The winning daughter of Snitzel was bred by Arrowfield Stud and sold from Bellerive Stud’s draft at the 2011 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale for $125,000, ending up in the ownership of Neil Werrett and Steve McCann on the advice of Kitchwin Hill’s Mick Malone.

Werrett is well-known as a part-owner of fellow Melbourne Premier Sale purchase Black Caviar, but Snitzerland is proving to be a great earner in her own right with today’s victory taking the three-year-old’s winnings to $949,500.

The San Domenico has been a great guide to future top three-year-olds sprinters, with Foxwedge, Shellscrape, Duporth, Gold Edition and Charge Forward a few of the recent winners of the Group 3 event that went on to Group 1 glory in their classic season.

Snitzerland holds an entry to the Group 1 MRC Thousand Guineas (1600m), but trainer Gerald Ryan indicated that the filly’s main aim this year will be the Group 1 VRC Coolmore Stud Stakes over 1200m at Flemington on Derby Day, the same race won by 2006 San Domenico winner Gold Edition.

Second Effort takes advantage of suitable conditions in Melbourne

The first Group 2 race for the 2012/13 Australian racing season was conducted at Caulfield on Saturday, with noted wet tracker Second Effort getting conditions to suit to gallop away with the MRC P.B. Lawrence Stakes.

The Heavy 10 played havoc with many chances during the day in Melbourne, but Second Effort (P$45,000 2008 Premier, 6g Mossman-Relativity) revelled in the going to record his eighth win from nine starts on Slow or Heavy surfaces when defeating Zamorar and Ready To Rip by over a length in the day’s 1400m feature.

The $132,000 first prizemoney took the six-year-old’s career earnings to $438,500, over eight times the $50,000 reserve Second Effort passed in for at the 2008 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale when offered by Lindsay Park Stud on behalf of breeder Dr G S Tucker.

Trainer Clinton McDonald had thought that the P.B. Lawrence would be beyond the son of Mossman following his win in the Listed Wangoom Handicap at Warrnambool in May, but the residual fitness the gelding took into the race served his connections well enabling the galloper to record his ninth career victory.