Features
Laurelin
2 f Lonhro – Yavanna by Redoute’s Choice O: Godolphin B: Godolphin T: James Cummings W: 2YO Fillies’ Maiden Plate (1100m), Randwick-Kensington, Wednesday, July 21 Laurelin (Lonhro), a sister to Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Kementari, looks one to watch next season after impressively landing the 1100-metre two-year-old fillies’ maiden at Kensington on Wednesday. ... Read More
More from It's In The Blood
Gonnadancealot
When Gonnadancealot won the 1800m first race at Flemington last Saturday, it heralded the start of not just one but perhaps two exciting Australian careers – that of the two-year-old filly, and her sire Sir Prancealot. The Irish-bred 11-year-old is a stallion who, in a way, may have slipped through some cracks on his way... Read More
Hong Kong connection fires Stanley Chin’s Macau Derby hopes
When a smart three-year-old with Hong Kong connections places top-four in an Australian classic, what follows is often exportation to the Pearl River environs and a targeted Derby campaign. That is exactly what prominent owner Simon Kwok did with his homebred Beauty Bolt (Redoute’s Choice), and yet, rather than take the conventional route to Sha... Read More
Money-balling the 2021 Spring Carnival and a likely Covid-hit Melbourne Cup
Moneyball is the entertaining 2011 movie based on the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s success in building a team of undervalued players based on data analysis. Baseball, like cricket, is very much data analysis and statistics driven. Much more so than horse-racing despite the vast array of factors assessed, consciously or subconsciously, every time we look... Read More
Second for Air Force Blue
New first season sire winners Air Force Blue (pictured) Coolmore’s Air Force Blue (War Front) landed a second winner from his one and only southern hemisphere crop as Forceful Matilda (2 f ex Matilda’s Dance by Danehill Dancer) recorded a two-and-a-half-length win at Toowoomba in the two- and three-year-old maiden over 1200 metres. The filly... Read More
Realities of rehoming
In the depths of winter, training, riding and managing any type of horse is challenging and expensive. In the thoroughbred world, the off season is a prime time for decisions to be made to either race on or breed. Some put the cue in the rack and truck loads of horses are offered on the... Read More