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Astute trainer Roger James has every confidence that his top mare Concert Hall will stay 3200m in Sydney this autumn.
Concert Hall arrived in Sydney on Monday for a two-race campaign, which takes in the Gr.2 Chairman’s Quality (2600m) on April 10 and the Gr.1 Sydney Cup (3200m) a week later.
Concert Hall’s career has mainly been focused on distances between 1600m and 2100m, where she has won six of her 16 starts, including the Gr.1 Zabeel Classic (2000m) at Ellerslie on Boxing Day.
She has raced beyond 2100m on three occasions, all last season, in which she won the Gr.3 Manawatu Cup (2300m), finished fourth in the Gr.3 City of Auckland Cup (2400m), and was well beaten in the Gr.2 Avondale Cup (2400m), her final run of the season.
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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.