History awaits G2 Delightful Lady hopefuls

New Zealand harness racing’s best early-season juvenile fillies will do battle on Friday night (Mar. 23) in the $63,000 G2 Delightful Lady Classic at Alexandra Park.

The race memorialises one of the truly great race mares ever produced down under, with the dual Auckland Cup winner and 1981 NZ Harness Horse of the Year a prominent figure and cult hero throughout a golden era of the sport. Delightful Lady retired as the winner of 47 races from 144 starts. She was the second mare behind Robin Dundee to ever win a $100,000 in stakes in New Zealand, with her $472,705 the most ever won by a New Zealand mare at the time of her retirement in 1985.

DELIGHTFUL LADY AUCKLAND CUP WINS

While the 35th edition of the race honouring her has drawn a disappointing field of five runners, if past history tells us anything, it’s that the winner of the Delightful Lady Classic will be destined for bigger things on the track and ultimately the broodmare paddock.

The likes of Auckland Cup winners, Flight South & Dream About Me, 4 x G1 winner & 3 x NZ filly and mare of the year, Under Cover Lover, and even G1 mare and stakes-producing dam, Democrat Party, are all on the honours list. So too Reality Check who has gone on to produce three G1 winners of her own.

With only one of the three proposed Young Guns heats run due to a lack of available runners, the exposed form for tomorrow night’s G2 feature is limited to the 3rd of March where four of the five Delightful Lady Classic hopefuls took part in the only heat for the series.

On that occasion, the powerful Purdon/Phelan barn unleashed with the quinella between Always B Miki filly, Kiss, and Ultimate Machete filly, Ultimate Racy Girl, fighting out the finish.

Only a head separated the pair in their first and only look at Alexandra Park’s ‘ribbon of light’, and based off early markets, punters are expecting more of the same from the boutique sample of juvenile fillies.

KISS REPLAY

The good news for those who bet into the markets is that New Zealand’s most winningest trainer, Barry Purdon, agrees with you.

“I think Kiss will probably be the hardest to beat of our three anyway,” said Purdon.

“In saying that, Ultimate Racey Girl has done everything right really, she did all the work last time out and just gone beaten. She has done nothing wrong and has come on well since her last run.

“There’s not a lot between both of them really, Kiss just had the drop on her last time and managed to scoot through and beat her so there isn’t a lot between the pair,” he said.

The front runners for the G2 feature we both bred by Alabar NZ with Kiss being the first foal from the unraced Art Major mare, Weownthenight, who is well related being a half-sister to New Zealand Cup winner Thefixer and speedy filly, The Honey Queen.

These are the tail lines of the wonderful Aristocratic family which has left many topliners and traces directly back to 1949 New Zealand Cup winner, Loyal Nurse.

Motu Racy Girl’s pedigree doesn’t have the maternal depth of her stablemate but does hail from the debut crop of Ultimate Machete which produced 48 live foals in New Zealand in his first season at stud.

As noted earlier, ‘Machete’s’ dam Reality Check won the race back in 2006 so there is some synergy there for the second favourite in adding the legacy of that line if she were to produce a win tomorrow night for her sire.

The favoured pair of Purdon/Phelan runners are joined by another stablemate in Supertramp (Vincent) whose grand dam, This Time Franco, was runner up in the 1992 edition of the Delightful Lady Classic before going on to earn 2 & 3YO NZ FIlly of the Year honours.

Supertramp, who was also bred by Alabar NZ, was a solid fourth in the first heat of the series back on the 3rd of March and her trainer Barry Purdon suggests she has been warming to the task of becoming a filly of some promise.

“She seems to be getting better the more we do with her. She has been quite bit behind the other two early on in their preparations, but she has caught up quite a bit in the last three or four weeks,” he said.

The Brent Mangos trained Treacherous Reign (Captaintreacherous) beat her into third back on the 3rd of March after sitting parked for the last lap of the 1700m journey and didn’t shirk the task with Brent Mangos notifying stipes he had trouble in activating the deafeners until halfway up the Alexandra Park straight.

The daughter of boom sire Captaintreacherous is out the G1 winning juvenile in Linda Lovegrace, with the Breckon Farm bred and owned filly also a half to last season’s promising juvenile in Luvstruck.

Rounding out the field will be the first starter and daughter of Sweet Lou in Onyx Shard.

Her trainer, Ray Green, of Lincoln Farms was frank in his assessment of her chances and the depth of the field.

“She’s on debut but they’re all pretty much unknowns. She’s not a bad filly who won’t be disgraced. She’s trialed really well and with only five runners this is like a glorified trial,” he said.

There is no hiding from the disappointing turn out for the race in memory of one of New Zealand’s greatest performed race mares in Delightful Lady. But with the change in the New Zealand racing calendar giving less incentive for having juveniles ready early in the season, it might well be the new norm.

For complete Auckland race fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink