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After three winners in the last few days for Laurel Oak Bloodstock horses, the well-bred Auckland Beauty made it four!

Winning last time out over 1200m to break her maiden, the Peter Moody-trained Redoute’s Choice mare started the race favourite in the field of eight at Sale.

Going forward after jumping away from the second widest barrier, jockey Linda Meech kept the mare where she was comfortable, and that appeared to be striding freely, about four – five wide.

As they tracked even wider around the home turn, the leading duo were closer to the outside rail than the inside.

Giving her head down the centre of the track, Auckland Beauty didn’t appear to have any issues with the slow rated surface as she continued to charge to the line, winning the race by almost two lengths from Powerossa with a long neck back to Rubyone.

To watch the footage of the race, click on the below image to be taken to Racing.com website.

By Champion Sire Redoute’s Choice out of the Group 2 AJC Shorts winner Fritz’s Princess, Auckland Beauty was purchased earlier this year at the Inglis Broodmare Sale and is looking like she was a good buy!

Congratulations to our fellow owners Grant Bloodstock Pty Ltd (Mgr: S P Grant) and Carpe Diem (Mgr: K R Lowe).

While it wasn’t the Melbourne Cup – which was an amazing race in itself, Laurel Oak Bloodstock horses did manage to secure two victories on the day; in Canberra with Bid Of Faith and at Kembla Grange with Tuscan Falls.

Off a very good second at her last start, improving three-year-old Zizou filly Bid Of Faith headed back to her home track of Canberra for trainer Keith Dryden where she contested the Ttm Secutity Maiden Plate over 1200m.

Starting the favourite based on her half-neck second last time out, jockey Brendan Ward wasn’t able to get her in from a wide gate, but she still travelled extremely well within herself during the run.

Rounding the home turn it was clear she would be in the finish, but had the wide run taken its toll?

Charging away from the field, Bid Of Faith broke her maiden by an impressive two and a quarter lengths for owners; Laurel Oak Bloodstock Pty Ltd Syndicate, F W Cook, Mrs C M Cook, B L J Syndicate, G J McAllister, Goolabri 1 Syndicate, Mrs J E Wise, Club Dryden Sydney Syndicate, Trapper Syndicate, G K Syndicate, S R Syndicate, Ms D M Van Meegen, M G Houston, G C Harders, B J Speering and K P Griffiths.

Our second winner of the day came via the Gary Portelli-trained Tuscan Falls (below) in the Waples marketing Handicap at Kembla Grange over 1000m.

Fourth as favourite at his most recent run, Nicconi gelding Tuscan Falls settled mid field on the rail with jockey Shaun Guymer in the saddle.

With the home turn reached and the runs starting to come, Tuscan Falls had drifted off the fence, but after no runs appeared, Guymer charged back towards the inside, finding a gap between the leading duo.

Joined by Cashenti, the two went head for head down the straight, with luckily Tuscan Falls getting his head in front when it counted – recording his second career win for owners Laurel Oak Bloodstock Pty Ltd Synd (Mgr: L J Mihalyka), Hon. W R Haylen, J M Ryan, J T O’Brien, N Macdonald, S C Cook, Mrs K Fraser, M R Tudehope, D Monch, M J Baumann, K Macdonald, J R Wilson, C J Reynolds, R H Spee, W A Chalker, S M Sandridge, M J Clift, R I Cullen and P McKenzie.

An impressive winner last time out when scoring by two-and-a-quarter lengths at the Sunshine Coast, our five-year-old War Pass mare Court Martial Miss has really shown that she hass appreciated some ‘sun on her back’, giving rewarding her owners with another exciting victory.

Contesting the Nucon Concrete Handicap over 1100m at the Gold Coast, jockey Daniel Griffin had the mare settled handy in the run, just like at her last start, before she was too powerful at the finishing, charging away for a length victory.

Defeating Brigadoon Legend by a length with the same margin back to Italian Storm in third, the Liam Birchley-trained Court Martial Miss has now recorded four wins from 11 starts for Grant Bloodstock Pty Ltd (Mgr: S P Grant), M A Couter, Mrs K Couter, Laurel Oak Bloodstock Pty Ltd (Mgr: L J Mihalyka), Pardon (Mgr: K G Sheppard) K Lowe, Mrs M Lowe, Mrs E Grant and G Pointon.

With a nice pedigree, being out of the stakes performed Zeditave mare Grand Juror, the more success the mare has on the track, the better her broodmare prospects are come yearling sale time, if connections decide to sell her offspring.

Fingers crossed she can keep up her winning momentum at her next start – best of luck to everyone involved!

Rebel Dane’s best chance of winning a Group I this preparation will be Friday night’s $1 million Group I William Hill Manikato Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley according to trainer Gary Portelli.

More than two years have passed since Rebel Dane’s first and only Group I success in the 2013 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (1400m) and Portelli believes now is the time for the six-year-old to claim a second victory at the elite level.

Rebel Dane has excelled at Moonee Valley despite a deceptive record of one win from four attempts. In his four starts at the unique circuit, Rebel Dane has been beaten a combined margin of less than 4-1/2 lengths, and each of those runs were in Group I company.

Portelli is also buoyed by a recent wind operation on the horse which has proven a huge success in two outings this preparation. A brilliant first-up win in the Group II Shorts (1100m) at Randwick on September 19 was followed by a fast-finishing second behind Manikato Stakes rival Terravista in the Group II Premiere Stakes (1200m) at the same venue.

The son of California Dane travels down to Melbourne on Wednesday evening.

“That’s been his routine every time,” Portelli said. “And I think he’s going as good as ever.

“He usually peaks at his third run in so hopefully he gets a bit of luck this year.

“He galloped last Saturday and we’ve just kept him fresh since.

“The whole preparation has been centered on this race and Moonee Valley certainly plays into our hands, if he’s going to win a Group I this preparation this is his chance.”

Portelli also revealed that Rebel Dane has been vaccinated in case of a trip to Hong Kong for the Group I International Sprint (1200m) in December.

“There’s Hong Kong on the table, he’s been vaccinated so we’ll see what happens. Obviously Friday night will tell us a bit more,” he said.

News from Racenet

Purchased at this year’s Inglis Broodmare Sale for only $50,000, the well-bred Auckland Beauty went part way to repaying that purchase pricing by breaking her maiden!

By Champion Sire Redoute’s Choice out of the Group 2 AJC Shorts winner Fritz’s Princess (pictured below), the mare had been placed prior to her purchase at the sale on multiple occasions, but since that time has had three starts for new owners Grant Bloodstock Pty Ltd (Mgr: S P Grant), Carpe Diem (Mgr: K R Lowe) and Laurel Oak Bloodstock Pty Ltd (Mgr: L J Mihalyka) and has produced two second placed effort before a spell, and then followed that up with an impressive maiden victory at Bairnsdale on Monday.

Trained by Peter Moody, the now four-year-old jumped away well from barrier three and went forward to settle in fourth place, right behind the leading trio.

Short-priced favourite Golden Cropper, a More Than Ready half-sister to Group 2 winner and now Coolmore stallion Rubick, started to make her run rounding the home turn, going to the leader and looking as if she would go on with it, but jockey Vlad Duric aboard Auckland Beauty had started to get our mare going and she responded very well.

With a few “taps” from the whip, Auckland Beauty set out after the leading duo, catching them with about 30m to run to take the race by three-parts-of-a-length from Golden Cropper with Little Bita Spunk a long head back in third.

With a win and six second placed performance from nine starts to date, it is clear that the mare has ability, and fingers crossed she goes on with it now, as once she retires from the track she is very well-bred and will make a great broodmare prospect being bred on the Danehill x More Than Ready cross.

Congratulations to our fellow owners.

Sent to Eagle Farm trainer Liam Birchley, after initially starting her career with Gary Portelli down in Sydney, the now five-year-old War Pass mare Court Martial Miss was having her second start for her new trainer and was quite impressive with her two-and-a-quarter length victory.

Having run second over 1110m when racing first-up for Birchley back in August, the mare had a nine week break and headed to the Sunshine Coast on Sunday where she contested the Lindsay Consulting Handicap over 1000m.

Away from barrier three with Michael Cahill in the saddle, the mare went forward and settled in third position behind leader Cannizzaro who had flown the gates and went a couple of lengths clear.

Getting a lovely run in transit sitting on the rails, when the home turn was reached and Cannizzaro began to weaken; Court Martial Miss was reminded what she was there for and surged through a gap between the tiring leader and One In One Out who was on her outside.

Pulling away to win the race quite easily, it was a reminder that the mare does have some talent and now that she has broken through, it is likely she will step up in class and could possible head for a Saturday race.

Congratulations to our fellow owners Grant Bloodstock Pty Ltd, Mr K R Lowe, Mrs M P Lowe, Mr M A Couter, Mrs K Couter, Mrs E K Grant, Pardon and Mr G A Pointon.

To view the race replay, click the above image and go to Race 5.

Rebel Dane’s trainer Gary Portelli has made a compelling case for why the Group II Premiere Stakes (1200m) should be elevated to Group I status.

The recent honour roll of the Premiere Stakes features the likes of Triple Honour, Hot Danish, Red Tracer, and Famous Seamus, all of which are Group I winners.

This year’s edition is littered with Group I-class gallopers and Portelli, who has Rebel Dane starting on Saturday, believes the $300,000 weight-for-age event meets the criteria of an elite level race.

“It’s an interesting race, there’s five Group I winners in it, two Group I-placegetters and there are only nine acceptors,” Portelli said.

“Should it be a Group I? It probably should.

“I think if it had Group I status you would get even better horses in it so I think they’ve got to look at that.”

Rebel Dane is coming off a brilliant first-up victory in the Group II The Shorts (1100m), his first run since undergoing a wind operation during the winter.

Portelli said all indications point to a similar performance second-up over the Randwick 1200 metre course where he will clash with Joe Pride’s Terravista.

“He seems to be in great order, certainly no reason why he can’t run up to his best second-up,” Portelli said.

“Although he has sometimes run a bit flat second-up so we’ve got that in the back of our mind.

“His track work was brilliant on Tuesday morning.

“If he turns up I think he’ll be hitting the line strongly but whether he’s good enough to catch Terravista, we’ll soon find out.

“He’s beaten Terravista once, at the Valley, and Terravista has beaten us once and that was down the straight at Flemington so we’ll see what happens.”

Following Saturday, Portelli intends to travel Rebel Dane down to Moonee Valley for a third crack at the Group I Manikato Stakes (1200m) on Cox Plate eve.

FLASH IN THE DARK and ATLANTIC SENTINEL provided a tremendously enjoyable double in Canberra on 25 September. This was Tony Campbell Cup Day, which is always a very enjoyable day of racing, honouring and remembering the very popular Canberra racecaller, who died ten years ago. The meeting also has the Canberra Premiership presentations, so with all that entertainment, we had three Laurel Oak tables at the luncheon that day. Capping that off with two winners was a perfect piece of timing.

Atlantic Sentinel won the first on the day to score his maiden win at his fourth race start. He is the first foal of the former talented Laurel Oak racemare, CUT AND RUN, and he looks to have a promising future. While his win was at 1400m, he looks set to be even better at 1600m and perhaps beyond, but we will have to wait until next preparation to find that out, as he has now gone for a spell. Last month we reported in on Canberra’s Capital Cash prizemoney boost at every second meeting, and Atlantic Sentinel won the first of these races, which was an $18,000 maiden.

Flash In The Dark book-ended the day by winning the last, giving trainer Keith Dryden a treble for the day. She was resuming from a spell, and this made it two wins from three starts for this well-bred filly. The win was perfect timing to go to the first of the Sydney metropolitan Highway Races. While originally announced to start in December, there was a Racing NSW announcement on the morning of the 25 September Canberra meeting that the concept was being fast-tracked and that the first race would be held at Randwick on 16 October as a Class 2 1200m race for country-trained horses.

This was perfect in terms of class and distance for Flash In The Dark, so Keith Dryden targeted that race, but that is where the “perfection” ended, as she was badly interfered with in the race and the occasion got to her, so she finished well back. She may now run in Canberra on Melbourne Cup Day.

In an era where the red carpet is rolled out for any colt within a breath of a group 1 win, how refreshing for a six-year-old stallion to still be on the track.

In truth, Rebel Dane has been all dressed up as a group 1 winner for two years now. It is just that no one has really wanted to come to his party. At least not recently.

“We’ve had enquiries, but we’ve never had a firm offer for him,” shrugged managing part-owner Louis Mihalyka. “Just at the time he would have been ideal for going to stud he stopped winning.

“While he has been running thirds and fourths in group 1 races, he hasn’t won a race since the Rupert Clarke two years ago. With that the interest and enquiries stopped.

“A couple of agents said when you retire him let us know and we had a few interested parties in May or June and they all dropped off. Now we just thought we’re going to enjoy him and let what will be be basically.”

Small and scrawny, with a breathing problem now amended, you can’t blame studmasters from shying away from Rebel Dane. But if there was ever an advertisement for his niche market post-racing days, The Shorts at Randwick on Saturday was it.

“I would have been a bit disappointed if he got beat today, to tell you the truth,” trainer Gary Portelli said after Brenton Avdulla lifted Rebel Dane to a last-stride win from Ball Of Muscle in the group 2 sprint.

“I hadn’t said it out loud, but I couldn’t see how these horses were going to beat him if he came back. He’s the only group 1 horse in the race and his qualifications have him [racing well] against the top group 1 horses.”

Which is exactly the same path Rebel Dane will plot this spring, en route to another Manikato Stakes showdown with Chautauqua and Terravista, a race-day scratching from The Shorts due to a waterlogged track.

It left Shiraz an overwhelming favourite at Randwick, but Tony McEvoy’s emerging sprinter laboured a little in third as Rebel Dane mowed down Ball Of Muscle to score by a half-head, showing no ill-effects from a recent throat operation.

“My legs are like jelly,” Portelli said. “When he was racing as a three-year-old he was 440 [kilograms]. He’s come a long way physically and looking at him I thought he might have even been a bit big, but that’s what we needed for 1100 [metres]. It was a lot easier to saddle him [today] – he didn’t try to kill us as badly as what he usually does.”

Avdulla had no qualms when overnight rain on Friday plunged the Randwick track into the heavy range before an upgrade earlier in the day.

“Doing his form and tapes [Friday] night and [Saturday] morning, he has had two goes on heavy tracks, he was beaten by Pierro one time and the other one was behind Lankan Rupee in the TJ Smith,” Avdulla said.

Joe Pride was forced to replace the three little letters he likes to attach to the Terravista name, “WBS”, with “SCR” on Saturday, but would have been forgiven for thinking it didn’t matter as Ball Of Muscle shot clear close to home.

“He’s never missed a place and he always run a good race,” he said. “We’ll go to the Moir because it’s the right race at the right distance.”

News from Adam Pengilly, SMH

Rebel Dane will return to the races in the 2015 The Shorts and trainer Gary Portelli is hopeful that the throat operation the six-year-old received during his stint in the spelling paddock will help him return to his best form.

Rebel Dane has not recorded a race win since his narrow victory in the 2013 edition of the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes.

Rebel Dane started his autumn campaign with a slightly disappointing sixth in the Group 1 William Reid Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley on March 27 and jockey Blake Shinn informed connections that the California Dane entire had trouble breathing when he finished 11^th in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes (1400m) at Royal Randwick on April 18.

Portelli told RSN that Rebel Dane had responded well to the tie-back operation and he said that he could not be happier with his star galloper ahead of The Shorts this weekend.

“We couldn’t be happier with him,” Portelli said.

“He has had the perfect little prep.

“He had a tieback operation, his throat was a problem last campaign but he is really going well and he is a really happy horse.

“I am looking forward to the weekend, but it will be a tough race.

“I haven’t had that many.

“I’m All The Talk was one that was done as a three-year-old and he came out and ran second to Terravista and ran a couple of good races after that.

“They are never really 100 percent, but the way Rebel’s throat was at the end of last campaign we will certainly see good improvement at the start of the campaign at least.

“He is breathing really well and he is really attacking the line in trackwork.”

Rebel Dane recorded his only win at Group 1 level when he claimed a narrow victory in the 2013 edition of the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes and Portelli believes that 1400 metres is the ideal trip for the six-year-old.

Portelli believes that Rebel Dane was not getting enough oxygen to his lungs during his autumn campaign to run out a strong 1400 metres or beyond, but he is hopeful that the throat operation will help the entire bounce back to his best.

“I actually think we could go the other way because he is going to get more air down and you will be able to get him over a little further because he will be able to sustain a sprint longer,” Portelli said.

“That will give us more options in terms of placing him, he is a very high-rated horse now and it makes it hard to place him.

“You couldn’t put him in a handicap, so he is basically stuck in set weights races and weight-for-age races, which doesn’t give you too many starts in the year.

“If we can get him over a little bit further it opens him up for some of the other weight-for-age races.”

Photo by The Raceller Twitter

Story by Thomas Hackett, Oze Form