Masterstroke purchase for Summit Bloodstock

The bargain buy of Nikki Louise is proving a masterstroke from the team at Summit Bloodstock as the mare leaves tongues wagging in her new-found home of harness racing in Victoria.

The four-year-old’s form has leapt off the page since joining the Emma Stewart team, which picked up the daughter of Art Major after 17 starts in Western Australia.

During her time west – which was mainly with Aiden De Campo – Nikki Louise could only manage three wins, but her form actually caught the eye of Summit racing manager Jamie Durnberger and his business partner Jake Webster, who were able to snap up the bay for under $10,000.

“It was pretty much a no-brainer for us,” he said.

“We put her through our system – we’ve got a system that we work on and over the last 18 months we have put all the horses through – and she turned up pretty good.

“She had a bit of speed, a bit of point-to-point speed, at a track like Gloucester Park which we didn’t think suited her.”

Nikki Louise’s final WA start was a fourth placing in January, and after some time off, she was at the races for her new stable in June. She did a bit of work but was too good on Victorian debut at Bendigo and then clocked a career best 1:53.2 mile rate when winning at the same track a few weeks later.

It was then off to Kilmore on July 24 for the Ken ‘Snowy’ Chapman Memorial, and she elevated the hype with a mammoth 25.6m victory in arctic conditions. A significant step-up in class presented in the Melton Mares Championship at Ballarat on Saturday night, but she stamped herself as a potential top-liner with a commanding triumph in a 1:55:1 mile rate over the 2200m trip. The time was just 1.4 seconds outside the Bray Raceway track record on a cold winter’s night.

“We have got about six or seven horses with Emma and Clayton (Tonkin) and they are all fillies or mares. They just have a really good affinity with them,” Durnberger said.

“After (Nikki Louise’s) first trial when she beat Bettor Be The Bomb and Emma and Clayton had pretty good wraps on her, we were pretty confident.

“We are pretty pumped. We own a lot of horses and if you throw the dart at the board long enough, you’re going to hit the bullseye, aren’t you?”

Durnberger said Nikki Louise, who is also part-owned by WA trainer Michael Young, was eligible for the Vicbred Super Series later in the year and revealed plans for her to tackle the Group 1 Queen of the Pacific in October.

By Tim O’Connor for HRV