27 Jun 2008
Australian interest in buying promising two-year-old filly
Keeper Special is sure to have escalated after she absolutely blitzed her rivals in winning her second race-day start at the Avondale Jockey Club's meeting at Avondale on Saturday.(28 June 08)
After finishing fourth when a shade unlucky at her debut at Ellerslie earlier in the month, this time there was no stopping Keeper Special who won to the tune of five-and-a-quarter lengths in the hands of apprentice jockey Darryl Horner who took full advantage of his 4kg claim in the heavy winter footing.
Keeper Special is trained at Pukekohe by Gareth McRae and is owned by her breeder, Margaret Watson, who lives in Silverdale, approximately 30km north of Auckland. She paid $4.80 to win and started one of the favourites for the event.
McRae said even before Saturday's win there had been interest from a potential Australian buyer in purchasing Keeper Special.
"I don't imagine that interest has gone away given how easily she has won this race," McRae said. "Obviously the price will have gone up now."
"If she doesn't get sold then the likelihood is that she will go to Otaki to run in the Listed two-year-old race at the end of July," he said.
McRae said Keeper Special had been squeezed out of a gap at a crucial stage of her first race-day start.
"I fully expected that she would go close to winning this time provided she handled the track conditions," he said. "She really prefers the footing a lot better than what she struck today."
Keeper Special capped another successful week for her sire, Keeper, who stands at Cambridge Stud this coming season at a fee of $15,000 plus gst.
On Friday at Hastings the John Wheeler-trained four-year-old gelding, Flypass (Keeper x Jet Show) was also in the winners' circle.
Keeper is now the sire of 74 individual winners and has 10 individual stakes performers including this season's Group 1 winners Insouciant and Keepa Cruisin. He is the leading sire of three-year-olds in New Zealand for the 2007/08 season.