THE Star Witness filly Swift Witness secured herself some valuable blacktype, winning the Group 2 Silver Shadow Stakes for three-year-old fillies over 1,200 metres at Randwick.
A Gold Coast winner on her debut and last in the Golden Slipper Stakes on her fourth start, the subsequent break has been to Swift Witness’s benefit, returning in sharp form to win by half a length from the Hinchinbrook filly Latino Blend and the Snitzel filly Four Moves Ahead.
Unfortunately the race was marred by the heavy fall of Xtremetime and Brendan Avdulla. Tightened for room down on the rail, the pair caught the heels of Tommy Berry’s mount Jamaea at the 100-metre mark.
Sadly, Xtremetime, a A$160,000 yearling buy of Prime Thoroughbreds, couldn’t be saved.
Brendan Avdulla was hospitialised. The 30-year-old jockey was later diagnosed with an undisplaced fracture of his C7 vertebrae and a small bleed on the brain, effectively ruling him out of the Spring Carnival. Stewards have opened an inquiry into the fall.
Third win
The Silver Shadow, the first leg of the Princess Series in Sydney, is the third time Gai Waterhouse has won the race, though the first with co-trainer Adrian Bott.
“To me she is more a sprinter, I don’t think she will get out over too far because she is so brilliant,” said Waterhouse. “We will go to the Furious Stakes next because that is still at 1,200 metres and set weights. Then we will think about the Tea Rose Stakes (1,400 metres) and whether we go to the mile for the (Group 1) Flight Stakes. But she is a lovely type of tenacious filly that we do so well with, the ones I love to have in our stable.”
Warehouse and Bott bought Swift Witness for A$260,000 at the Gold Coast Magic Millions, returning to the well this year to buy her full brother for $280,000.
Caviar’s third foal shows promise
BLACK Caviar’s third foal, Invincible Caviar, won her maiden at Sale last Sunday. By I Am Invincible, the filly was ridden by Jamie Kah and sent out a $1.55 favourite.
“I think she’s going to get better when she has one or two in front of her to follow, but she’s got a lot of improvement there,” said Melbourne’s champion jockey.
“She’s such a darling out there, she’s really well educated, a jockey’s dream pretty much. I’m just excited to get the ride. She’s so raw, she’s doing everything so easily, she’s got a big beautiful stride on her and when she gets something to follow I think she’ll improve.”
Trained by Peter Moody it was Invincible Caviar’s second start having run third on debut at Flemington in June.
Black Caviar’s previous first two foals, Oscietra and Prince Of Caviar, have both won though at a limited level.
NEW Zealand Racing remains in a holding pattern with no racing held since August 14th after Jacinda Ardern’s Government imposed a stage 4 lockdown following a person testing positive to the highly infectious Delta strain of Covid-19 on 17th August.
“Obviously at this point in time, it is frustrating with horses heading into the spring but the big difference to last year is that we are able to continue training, albeit with fairly strict rules in place,” said Tony Pike, president of the New Zealand Trainers’ Association.
“If we couldn’t train it would be very tough and the carnival over here would be ruined. So, a resumption on (the 28th) Saturday is the best-case scenario but an announcement is going to be made on Friday afternoon.”
As of Tuesday there 41 new cases, bringing the total number of this outbreak to 148, the majority of which is in Auckland.