Rancho Montoya could be special

Sunday 25 June 2017, 5:08pm

It is rare for a Friday meeting at Ipswich to produce a possible Melbourne winter carnival horse but that looks the case with beautifully bred colt Rancho Montoya.

He made his debut in a 1200m-maiden last week and cruised home by 2-1/2 lengths after being backed from $2.20 into $1.25.

Rancho Montoya is by High Chaparral out of the Group One winning mare Isolda who counts a win over superstar Octagonal on her record.

Trainer Stuart Kendrick had planned to run Rancho Montoya at the Gold Coast last Wednesday but decided to duck a wet track there.

"He had a bit on them at Ipswich but we will give him his next real test at Doomben on Saturday week in a 1350 metre two year old," Kendrick said.

"If he wins that as we would expect he will go to Melbourne for the spring carnival races."

Kendrick went within a centimetre of making it a two-year-old double in two days when Marseille En Fluer was beaten a nose in the Listed Winning Edge Stakes.

"I would have loved to have won with her to add to her value as a broodmare but she has some black type now," he said.

Fellow trainer Kelly Schweida hopes his Cellargirl can bounce back from a cut on a hind leg to resume racing soon.

Cellargirl was odds-on favourite for the Aquis Crystal Plate at Doomben on Saturday but was a race morning scratching.

"It is nothing too serious but we couldn't risk her. It was annoying because the race was worth $96,000 to the winner and she would have won," Schweida said.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »