Waikato Sprint winner set for Sydney trip

Saturday 8 February 2014, 4:53pm

Dual New Zealand Group One winner Viadana could seek black type in Sydney this autumn.

Last year's Easter Handicap winner added a second Group One when she won the Waikato Sprint at Te Rapa, sneaking through on the inside to win by a head.

Viadana is likely to head next to the Group One Otaki Weight-For-Age (1600m) on March 22, but the mare's Matamata trainer Lance Noble said fillies and mares races in Sydney are possible after that.

"We wouldn't target the top ones straight away, but we'd love to get some Aussie black type," he said.

Noble said the Group Two Emancipation Stakes (1600m) at Randwick on April 5 was a likely target, and a good effort could mean he'd then consider Group One races.

"I'm not scared to take them on if we're going well enough, and most of the good ones will be in the lead-ups anyway."

The Waikato Sprint was the latest big-race victory for in-form jockey Craig Grylls, who last month won the Group One Thorndon Mile and the Group Two Wellington Cup on January 25.

Grylls guided Viadana on the inside of the track while most of the field went wide and established enough of a break to hold out Sacred Star.

"I was travelling that good I thought I'd duck inside and try to come out again, and she kicked really strong," Grylls 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 »