MAHER IMPORT CATCHES THE EYE AT ROSEHILL

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, October 14, 2026

The Ciaron Maher trained Perisher landed a notable win at Rosehill, coming home in impressive style to take out the Ranvet Handicap over 1500m in his first start in Australia.

The Irish-bred son of Australia … yes, you read that right … racing in the distinctive Australian Bloodstock silks, was saluting for the third time in his eight start career to date, but his previous wins came at Gowran Park in Ireland, where he scored his Maiden success at his fifth attempt, before quickly making it back-to-back wins in a three-year-old set weight contest at Naas in Ireland.

Those results came over 1609m and 2011m respectively.

In his remaining five starts in the UK, Perisher only finished worse than third place on one occasion.

Interestingly enough, his last start in England before relocating to Australia was at Royal Ascot on June 20, where he finished in third place in the Golden Gate Stakes in a race won by Lost Boys, who was ridden by James McDonald who would have had a close-up view of the Perisher as he only finished 1.25 lengths ahead of the Australian Bloodstock syndicated runner.

Fast forward to Rosehill on Wednesday and Perisher returned the compliment, this time keeping McDonald and the Chris Waller trained Nobler back in second place by a 1.74 length margin. Another close look for McDonald, but not from his preferred angle.

A win on debut in a new country is always going to be worthy of some merit, but it was the manner in which Perisher achieved the win that marks him as one for the notebook … particularly as this was Perisher’s first run in four months over a distance that is bound to prove to be well short of his best.

Perisher, the $3.50 second favourite, landed in the second half of the field. Chad Schofield quickly had the grey up to midfield though, and he ultimately settled in fifth place some four lengths off the frontrunner, the $2.45 favourite Puntin.

Perisher was still fifth with ground to make up, and cornering five wide when the field straightened for home, and Schofield wasted no time in setting Perisher after the long-time leader and the import appeared to thrive on the challenge, steadily building enough momentum to both easily brush the game effort of Puntin aside over the concluding stages and to just as easily keep the hard charging Nobler comfortably at bay.

The soft going may have been to his liking, but it was an eye-catching performance whichever way you look at it.