22 Jul 2007
Cambridge owner-trainer Graeme Stubbings had a quick return on his investment when promising three-year-old Keep Me was successful at Saturday's Avondale Jockey Club meeting at Avondale.
Stubbings bought the Keeper gelding less than four months ago from the Pike family of Cambridge.
Keep Me was named by Vicki Pike and had run a couple of placings in trials prior to Stubbings purchasing him.
"He showed ability and I just had to keep him ticking along to the races," Stubbings said.
"He is now qualified to race in Hong Kong as a private purchase griffin so there could be offers for him from there," he said.
Stubbings, who has six horses in work, operates Raffles Farm in Cambridge in partnership with Fred Lee, an 80-year-old brother of the father of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
The operation specialises in managing broodmare portfolios and acquiring horses for Asian owners. It educates these horses through to racing stage and sometimes beyond before sending them on to Singapore and Hong Hong Kong.
Up to 20 horses are regularly consigned to Asian stables.
Stubbings is a fan of the stock of Cambridge Stud sire Keeper who has achieved a very high rate of winners this season.
Keeper has sired 23 individual winners in the 2006/07 season which makes him the leading second-season sire (by winners).
In total Keeper has now achieved 39 individual winners - including two Group 2 winners and five stakes performers - from just two crops racing. His strike rate of winners to starters is 51 per cent.