Adams gets Turn in the spotlight with bargain Wakeful-bound filly
Bloodstock agent Mills’s offsider and trainer Kearney team up with promising three-year-old
Rochelle Adams is accustomed to the intoxicating feeling of black–type success alongside agent Sheamus Mills, but at Flemington on Saturday a filly of her own will take to the track on one of the nation’s most traditional race days.
The lightly raced maiden Easy Turn (Star Turn) will contest the Wakeful Stakes (Gr 2, 2000m), a precursor to Thursday’s VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m), for a syndicate headed by Adams and Ballarat-based trainer Patrick Kearney.
For the past eight years, Melbourne-based Adams has been the bloodstock assistant to Mills, the pair building a business predominantly on the back of high-priced stakes-winning fillies: Group 1 winner Odeum (Written Tycoon), black–type scorers Charm Stone (I Am Invincible) and Daisies (Sebring) and last Saturday’s Crockett Stakes (Listed, 1200m) winner Gumdrops (Written Tycoon) among them.
But this weekend, Adams’ $30,000 bargain basement buy Easy Turn is testament to her own ability to spot value at all ends of the market.
The promising staying filly, third to the talented War Frontier (War Front) at her first start on October 2 prior to finishing runner-up to Pittsburgh Pirate (Pierro) at Swan Hill two weeks later, has earned a shot the three-year-old fillies Group 2 race, one of the undercard Group contests on a card which has three Group 1 races.
By sprinting stallion Star Turn (Star Witness) out of a mare who was 25 at the time of her birth, it is Easy Turn’s dam, 1998 Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Inaflury (Zabeel), that made Adams think twice about the November 5-born filly at last year’s Magic Millions 2YOs In Training Sale.
“It’s funny, a lot of people queried us running her first-up over 1400 metres being by Star Turn, but if you look at who her mum is, she certainly doesn’t look like a Star Turn. She looks a lot like a Zabeel,” Adams said yesterday.
“Inaflury ran in two Caulfield Cups, she ran in a Melbourne Cup, she won the Guineas. She was pretty amazing as a racehorse, but unfortunately she’s got a pretty poor breeding record [three winners from seven foals to race].
“Hopefully we’ll have a bit of luck with Easy Turn.”
Sold by breeder Gerry Harvey through his Baramul Stud draft at the breeze-up sale, Adams was armed with a $10,000 voucher courtesy of Magic Millions-sponsored race a horse of hers won at the Darwin carnival earlier in 2022.
“Honestly I was buying on a budget, so I was just trying to buy on type. I went there looking to buy a really nice looking horse,” she said.
“Obviously working for Sheamus, he is really big on broodmare sires and the foal or the product in front of you looking like their mum’s sire and when I saw her I just thought she looked like a Zabeel.
“She was big with plenty of length, but she still wasn’t overly huge … and she walked really well.”
Named after Australian Olympic equestrian Shane Rose’s probable 2024 Paris-bound horse, Easy Turn was selected by Adams at the 2022 two-year-old sale for her close friend and trainer Kearney, the pair riding against each other on the Victorian picnic scene a decade ago.
Kearney also spent a significant amount of time as Mick Price’s travelling foreman before moving to Ballarat and branching out on his own.
Kearney’s feedback to Easy Turn’s owners is that she is a stayer in the making.
“She is thriving, she’s just getting better and better with every gallop and he said her gallop [on Tuesday] was as good as she’s ever had,” Adams said.
“She’s so clean-winded. He always sends videos as soon as the horses get back to the tie-in stalls and she wasn’t blowing, so she must have that really high twitch where she can sustain such a long run and it doesn’t affect her at all.
“Pat has sworn black and blue that this horse needs further. He is desperate to get her over 2000 metres and, with her mum running over 3200 [metres] as well, we’re pretty keen to get her out in trip.
“Whether that’s this prep or not, we do want to go to the Adelaide Oaks next year, but hopefully we’re going to the VRC Oaks on Thursday first.”
Madison Lloyd retains the ride on Easy Turn who will jump from barrier nine in the Wakeful.
“She’s ridden her perfectly in her two starts so far and I’d like her to be just behind the speed. I think that’s where she needs to be,” Adams said.
“She is a big girl, so if she was just behind the speed with a bit of room, that’d be ideal.”
She added: “The aim of the game with these fillies is to get black type. She will go around at 100-1 and she probably doesn’t deserve to be that price, but there can be a big gap in these 2000-metre races and 2500-metre races as three-year-old fillies and if you’ve got a horse who can stay, you’re better off at Flemington than in the paddock.”