25 Apr 2024Almanzor has again emphasised his standing as a pre-eminent source of top-quality distance performers with a pair of his daughters dominating the finish of the Listed VRC St Leger at Flemington.
Ahuriri was an emphatic winner of the 2800 metre classic with Alma Rise just as easily claiming the runner-up berth at just her third appearance.
Trained by Chris Waller, Ahuriri was coming off a midfield finish in the G3 Adrian Knox Stakes on a heavy track and she showed her true colours on a drier surface with a clear-cut victory.
“She won it pretty easily, she travelled well and relaxed and saved her energy,” stable representative Dermot O’Brien said.
Ahuriri kept the leaders within her sights and when rider Damian Lane asked her for a serious effort 350 metres from home, she lengthened stride to coast home by two and a-quarter lengths.
“She was in her comfort zone and then quickened up and it was never in doubt,” O’Brien said.
Bred by the Bax family, Ahuriri is out of a half-sister to the multiple Group 1 winner Lucia Valentina and was an $80,000 purchase at New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sale.
The Peter Moody and Catherine Coleman-prepared Alma Rise was a meritorious second for a filly with limited experience and is bred and raced by Ed Calvert.
She is a daughter of the Bertolini mare Fashion Black, whose half-brother Xtravagant was a dual top-flight winner.