News

Trainer's sales pitch off to flyer

17th Jan 2013

Sydney Morning Herald - Michael Sharkie - Thursday, 17 January 2013

A plan to target the progeny of Fastnet Rock broodmares may take trainer Pat Carey all the way to the Blue Diamond Stakes after a brilliant winning debut by Donna Madeira (pictured) at Sandown on Wednesday spoilt a plunge on another Blue Diamond aspirant.

Donna Madeira showed blistering speed to lead throughout in the 900-metre scamper, denying the heavily backed John Sadler-trained debutante Sworn Revenge ($1.80 favourite), who earlier in the day had been backed from $51 to $13 to win Victoria's richest race for juveniles next month.

The ease of Donna Madeira's win forced her Blue Diamond quote to be slashed from $151 to $26.

With the progeny of Fastnet Rock selling for small fortunes at yearling sales in the past two years, Carey decided that he would punt on Fastnet Rock broodmares rather than join the spending spree, and managed to secure a small but well-bodied yearling filly, by Henrythenavigator, for $105,000 at last year's Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.

''Gee, she just flew out of the gates,'' the Mornington trainer said. ''She's not big but she is so sharp and she reminds me a bit of a horse called Rollicks, who was a very fast sprinting mare in the 1970s.

''They [Sworn Revenge backers] were obviously entitled to be confident, and the [Sadler] stable had a good yardstick in their winner [Ms Funovits] at Flemington last weekend. What that means for this filly though, I'm not sure yet. She's from one of the best families in the Australian Stud Book and when you see a family like that perform for a quarter of a century, it gives you a lot of confidence.''

In winning on debut, Donna Madeira emulated the deeds of her dam, San Cristobel, who also won over 900 metres on debut. Unfortunately, San Cristobel only had four more starts before being retired.

Winning jockey Rhys McLeod was suspended for eight meetings for causing interference to Glen Boss and Sworn Revenge at the 600-metre mark. He can resume riding on January 28.