3 minute read
A look at the undercard on Mornington Cup Day
Carey riding Cresta wave
Pat Carey continued his affinity with the family of Cresta Condor when he produced Claymore Mine to win the $150,000 Mornington Sires, which kicked off the Mornington Cup Day program.
The two-year-old daughter of Rich Enuff is the third to race from the Stratum mare, whose older foals Crestani and Clarity also won at their first start for the Mornington trainer.
"They won on debut and she has kept that going, it's fantastic," Carey said.
"She's a lovely filly, quite a bit stronger than the family in body weight and is a little more advanced than them and got to the races a bit earlier."
Claymore Mine ($11) produced a strong finish to reel in $3.320 favourite Chilled in the 1200-metre event and score by three quarters of a length with Le Zebra ($14) half-a-length away third.
Former Chairman convenes first Aussie win
The Ciaron Maher and David Eustace stable unearthed another promising imported stayer when Convener overcame difficulty to break his Australian maiden in the benchmark 78 over 2000 metres.
The son of last year's Victoria Derby-winning sire Almanzor went one better than his second placing at Sandown at his Australian debut when he defied a wide run to prove too strong for his rivals as a well-backed favourite.
Known as Chairman in Europe, having been bred in France, the Northern Hemisphere three-year-old came to Australia a winner of two of seven starts and underlined the strong opinion the stable have of him with his resolute two-length win over Feurmond ($21) and stablemate Sky Out ($31), who was just a short-neck back.
Convener was ridden to victory by Blake Shinn, who said the entire has the attributes to take him a long way.
"He's got a fair bit of class and a fair bit of heart and it's going to take him a fair way," Shinn said.
Convener's win was part of a winning treble fort Maher and Eustacer, who also won the Mornington Cup win Right You Are and Mornington Guineas with Lethal Thoughts.
Moody and Meech do it again
They combined for a runaway win with She Dances last week and Linda Meech and Peter Moody again celebrated an easy win with a powerful front-runner at Mornington.
The long-standing trainer/jockey combination celebrated a three-length win with Outback Action in the 1200m BM78 handicap.
The four-year-old son of Better Land loomed as the only leader in the race and Meech, one of Australia's best on-pace rider, cashed in on that to steer the four-year to an easy win, but not before wanting to fight the rider early.
"He began and didn't want to go, then I gave him a little squeeze and he really wanted to go and I just had to go with him," Meech said.
"He's that sort of horse, a really fast horse, so I thought 'let fast horses be fast', I suppose."
The victory was the third from eight starts for Outback Action, who also has three minor placings to his name.
