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Hands Savabeel his 99th stakes winner.
Waikato Stud-based sire Savabeel (Zabeel) moved one closer to a century of stakes winners on Saturday when his daughter Missybeel (5 m ex Sitting Pretty by O'Reilly) proved too strong for her rivals in the Epona Stakes (Gr 3, 1900m) at Rosehill.
The five-year-old mare gained the lead at the 150 metre mark and galloped strongly to the line to beat Gayatri (Pierro) by a nose with just under a length back to Greysful Glamour (Stratum) in third.
"She had a nice run and relaxed well," said winning jockey Tim Clark.
"That gave her a good opportunity to finish off. She followed the right horse, the grey horse took me everywhere I needed to go.
"She sprinted up well and toughed it out really strongly.
"It was a nice race for her against the mares to try and get some black-type."
Purchased by her trainer Bjorn Baker and Blandford Bloodstock for $210,000 at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling from the Waikato Stud draft, Missybeel is out of the unraced O'Reilly (Last Tycoon) mare Sitting Pretty who has produced one other winner to date in Missybeel's sister Loveseat. Saturday's victory took her record to six wins with prize-money now totalling $299,660.
Her second dam is the winning Bluebird (Storm Bird) mare Jacquin who produced seven winners headed by the multiple Group 1 winner Metal Bender (Danasinga) as well as the stakes-placed Southern Venture (Zabeel).
Missybeel's third dam is Nuwirah (Pleasant Colony), the dam of six winners including Group 1 winner and successful sire Keeper (Danehill).
Sitting Pretty was covered again by Savabeel last year having missed in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The victory provided O'Reilly with his 77th stakes winner as a broodmare sire. Daughters of the late Waikato Stud-based stallion have produced 14 Group 1 winners and he currently leads the broodmare sires table in New Zealand by winners and is sitting third in the table by earnings.
Savabeel meanwhile has eight lots catalogued for the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale including a colt out of multiple Group 1 winner Tuesday Joy (Carnegie).
