Bits and Bridles

When the Brian O’Meara owned Jesse Owens (Bettor’s Delight) won at Ashburton last Thursday, he added to the list of horses with famous names O’Meara has trained.

Christian Cullen was the most famous, he was named after his namesake in the All Blacks. CC won twenty two of his thirty one starts and over a million dollars.

O’Meara also trained Gail Devers (runner), Di Caprio (actor), Oscar De La Hoya (boxer), Omar Sharif (actor), Tiger Woods (golfer), Hone Heke (Māori leader) and Julius Caesar (Roman General).

Ultimate Sniper sired his first winner at Winton on Sunday when Seeking Clarity trained by Matty Williamson won the Perfect Sting At Macca Lodge Mobile Pace, by seven lengths.

The two year old filly was bred and is part owned by Rusty Nevill who races the filly with the Corner Shop Syndicate and the Who’s Drivin Syndicate.

Both syndicates have a share in Jordan Anne who won at Winton recently and Majesdix who finished second on Cup Day at Addington.

When you crunch the Cup Week numbers they reveal the dominance of the Australian trained horses at this year’s carnival, especially in the feature races.

On Cup Day, $2,018,250 in stakes were paid out and $937,000 went into Australian accounts. On Show Day the stakes were $1,810,225 and Australian trained horses took home $560,292 of that sum.

In the washup, over Cup Week 37.1% of stakes were won by the Aussies. One presumes the number of Australian runners in Cup week will increase as the carnival becomes an Australasian event.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink