Photo: Bruno Cannatelli
Another powerhouse front-running performance by Grinzinger Belle (Shamexpress) in Saturday’s A$300,000 Gr.2 Packaging Needs Sunline Stakes (1600m) at Moonee Valley has earned her a Group One opportunity in Sydney.
The fillies and mares’ feature was the fourth stakes win for the New Zealand-bred Shamexpress mare, who had previously won the Gr.2 Let’s Elope Stakes (1400m), Gr.3 The Vanity (1400m) and Gr.3 Ladies’ Day Vase (1600m). She is now in line for a shot at the Gr.1 Queen Of The Turf Stakes (1600m) at Randwick on April 12.
“We could potentially give her that chance in Sydney,” trainer Danny O’Brien said. “She’s a mare that, when conditions suit, she gets rolling and she can be hard to get on the back of, let alone get past.”
That proved to be the case on Saturday, where Grinzinger Belle and jockey Declan Bates dominated the race from the front. They never gave their rivals a chance, romping home by two and three-quarter lengths over fellow New Zealand-bred mare Wrote To Arataki. The third placegetter finished another four lengths away.
“She’s a lovely mare,” Bates said. “She’s a big mare to ride and she has that asset of a high cruising speed, and it’s a matter of letting her use that in the right way. She was just better than them today.
“She probably didn’t begin the best today, but it was a matter of getting her up to that high stride that she has. Once we were there, it was about keeping her comfortable, bringing her back a little bit but not too much. I always felt she was going well enough.
“I had to keep her up to her work in the straight. She was getting a bit lonely more than anything. I don’t think she was tying up tired, she thought her job was done, so I had to remind her there was a couple of hundred metres to go. It was a good, satisfying win.”
Grinzinger Belle has now had 17 starts for five wins, five placings and A$807,655 in stakes.
She was bred by Windsor Park Stud and is out of Ripsomemore, a Rip Van Winkle half-sister to Group Three winner Golden Parachute.
Grinzinger Belle is another good graduate of the New Zealand Bloodstock Book 2 Yearling Sale at Karaka, where she was purchased by owner John Wheeler for $32,000.
Despite some fertility challenges, Shamexpress almost 6 per cent stakes winners to runners and his 2020 crop of just over 20 foals includes Grinzinger Belle and Hong Kong superstar Ka Ying Rising.
