RSN927
PADDOCKS ARE FOR COWS. WHY NOT A SEAMLESS SUMMER OF SPRINTING?
February 11, 2021 12:23 pm
By Matt Stewart, Racing Editor
Would program continuity – as in eliminating the gap between spring and autumn – bolster flagging sprint fields in Melbourne through the summer?
Spartan sprint ranks, highlighted by a lacklustre field of six in last month’s
Australia Stakes at
The eight-horse field for Saturday’s
Black Caviar Lightning Stakes at Flemington is hardly spilling over but at least it’s elite and suggests timing is important; the Australia Stakes falls too early, the Lightning doesn’t.
The Darley is a re-match from the key Darley Sprint combatants of the spring,
Adelaide’s Italian community has been urged to rally behind SA racehorse Regalo Di Gaetano’s bid to secure a spot in the world’s richest mile race the $5 million All-Star Mile.
Carrying silks bearing the green, white and red colours of the Italian flag, and with a story stretching back 30 years and involving a local Italian family, the horse needs the South Australian public to vote him into the field for the All-Star Mile, to be run at Moonee Valley.
Regalo Di Gaetano is among 83 nominations for the race and securing a spot would mean the world for part-owner Bruno Disotto, who has been involved in the horse’s lineage since the 1990s. Currently he sits 14th in voting behind star WA mare Arcadia Queen.
Link to Share
New Zealand-based trainer Roger James has paid tribute to the career of multiple Group 1-winning mare Silent Achiever after the O Reilly mare died on Thursday, aged 12.
Silent Achiever was a four-time Group winner for James and breeder-owner Kevin Hickman, of Valachi Downs, starring as a three-year-old with consecutive wins in the G2 Championship Stakes (2100m) at Ellerslie, the G2 Waikato Guineas (2000m) at Te Rapa, G2 Avondale Guineas (2100m) and G1 New Zealand Derby (2400m), both at Ellerslie.
The winner of the G2 Crystal Mile (1600m) at four, defeating Group 1 winners Rangirangdoo and Solzhenitsyn, Silent Achiever went to a new level again at five.
Save our precious birds
Dismiss
Normal text size
Credit:Illustration: Matt Golding
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number.
Save our precious birds
We applaud the efforts being made to save the critically endangered eastern bristlebird (Sunday Age, 31/1). However, in the other extreme on Victoria’s west coast, the near threatened rufous bristlebird’s habitat is under threat. An extensive ″strategic firebreak″ (vegetation) is being slashed around coastal communities, thus destroying bristlebird habitat. On discussion with the state Environment Department, I got the impression that asset protection trumps bristlebird survival.