This Listed 1400m for fillies and mares was not very strong overall with almost half the field having never attained blacktype (despite numerous attempts) and some of them had never even competed at that level before today and been running around in much lower and inferior grades. The track was a bog and saw some poor times posted of fifty lengths or more below standard so it was tough going. Underthemoonlight won easily and showed she is a mudder in the main when sitting fifth then moving through into second nearing the home turn. The rising 6yo mare then led at the 300m and swam clear the final 150m to win by three and a half lengths and clock 1:32.52. The time was poor in comparison to the day being the just the third best of four races held over 1400m and alarmingly a 3yo only race (albeit earlier in the day) and the race before this (a Benchmark 75 so three classes at least inferior) ran superior time. It was the fourth win in twenty-one starts by Underthemoonlight so while consistent she is not a regular winner at all and in fact has been placed in half her outings. She won a G3 on wet ground against her own sex easily last October and now has a Listed success to go with it. The mare is yet to win past 1400m and has never paid a dividend on good footing while on dead or easy found she has finished third and fourth, so cut in the ground or wetter is imperative. New York Minute set the pace and fought on in a gap that was in fact bigger back to the third finisher Meursault, which ran on from ninth nearing the home turn. Meursault was just under eight lengths from the winner and nabbed the blacktype third with 10m to go. Galaxy Miss sat second the outer and weakened the run in at her first attempt at blacktype, while Heni also struggled the run home after sitting fourth and actually reaching third near the home turn. The rest got beaten almost fifteen lengths and up to over twenty-five lengths so were under sufferance a long way and going nowhere in the boggy footing. This race only looks to have relevance on similar testing footing as many of these lacked the quality from the outset and especially under WFA conditions. Also several of these like wet ground but not as deep and gluey, so on dead to slow ground would put in better performances. Underthemoonlight in her third and fourth finishes on dead footing came in races that since the form has proven to be majority awful and not trustable. Her fourth in the G2 Foxbridge Plate (1200m) at Te Rapa under WFA against all comers last August has been a very poor source since and was a suspect line up beforehand too. Her third, which also came at the heavily sand-slitted and manmade biased Te Rapa track notably, came in a very suspect Open Class for all comers and the winner Splurge has been beaten badly in Australia twice since in Queensland.
Previous Winners
Date | Horse | Jockey | WT | Trainer | BP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
SUMMER'S DAY
(NZ)
4M DARCI BRAHMA (NZ) - ONE PERFECT DAY (NZ) FUSAICHI PEGASUS (USA) |
V A COLGAN | 57.0 | TONY PIKE | 3 |
|
QUEENS ROSE
(NZ)
5M O'REILLY (NZ) - ROSETTI BAY (NZ) PINS (AUS) |
V A COLGAN | 57.0 | GRAHAM RICHARDSON | 8 |
|
I DO
(NZ)
6M NO EXCUSE NEEDED (GB) - FREEQUENCE (NZ) O'REILLY (NZ) |
J K RIDDELL | 57.0 | A SHARROCK | 7 |
|
SACHA
(NZ)
4M KEEPER (AUS) - VIVA ROMANCE (GB) MACHIAVELLIAN (USA) |
KELLY MC CULLOCH | 57.0 | L LATTA | 1 |
|
PLATINUM ZANA
(AUS)
3F NOVERRE (USA) - FANFARE (AUS) MIGHTY AVALANCHE (AUS) |
D G BRADLEY | 55.5 | L LATTA | 3 |
|
ISTISTAR
(NZ)
4M ISTIDAAD (USA) - MARLANDA STAR (NZ) STAR WAY (GB) |
M B WENN | 56.5 | STEPHEN MCKEE | 6 |
|
ASCOT ISLE
(AUS)
6M ASCOT KNIGHT (CAN) - SEASCAPE (GB) SHIRLEY HEIGHTS (GB) |
O P BOSSON | 56.0 | KARYN MCQUADE | 5 |