THE PETLEY REPORT: FOUR FOR RACHEL KING AT ROSEHILL. MARK NEWNHAM LANDS A DOUBLE

By Jack Petley | Sunday, November 29, 2020

Trainer Mark Newnham had a good day at Rosehill yesterday with the tough mare Greysful Glamour and two races later with Invictus Salute. That win came at a great time for Invictus Salute as the daughter of Exceed and Excel is in foal to the champion sire I am Invincible and she goes to stud with a Listed stakes win at her last run.

Invictus Salute was ever so well handled by Rachel King who was in superb form winning the two for Newnham and also on Threeood and He's A Hotshot.. Those four wins took her City wins for the season to a very solid 22, behind McDonald, Berry, Rawiller and Collett.

Bjorn Baker trains He's a Hotshot and that win took his City tally to 14 with Baker deciding to run the Star Witness gelding yesterday instead of opting for Canterbury on Friday night.

Randwick trainer John O'Shea has taken time to develop his string since his stint with Godolphin but he is now building a strong team and he had a great start to racing yesterday, winning the first two races at Kembla with Brooks Battle and Mr Gee, both in the hands of Jeff Penza, and then the first at Rosehill, the two-year-old event with a very smart looking filly Robodira, a daughter of Husson from the Redoute's Choice mare Don't Blink, who O'Shea trained for the breeder of the filly, Ron Finemore. O'Shea said he would now give the filly a break and have her back for majors in the autumn.

And while on trainers Team Hawkes always have a top horse or three, often more, in their yards in Sydney and Melbourne and they certainly have a rising star in Outrageous, winner of the Festival Stakes for Tommy Berry. In the past months of the new season the stable has produced some top gallopers including Ole Kirk, Dirty Work and Wild Planet and last week they took out the $1 million, The Gong with Archemedus.

And one can't complete a column without mentioning Chris Waller. He won with He Runs Away at Rosehill, Re Edit at Moonee Valley and a two-year-old race at Doomben with a very smart two-year-old in Conexy, who won for Luke Dittman in those famous cerise colours of the Ingham family. The colt showed pace through the early stages and was always in control and looks to be yet another smart rising star for the Ingham family.

Later in the day the Waller stable did not have as much luck with the heavily backed Kubrick being beaten into second by Beachbreak with the odds tumbling before the race on Kubrick from $3.40 to $1.95.

In NZ at Ellerslie Jamie Richards and Te Akau were in fine form winning three on the card, with Star of Bombay, You're Welcome and the two-year-old Millefiori, an Iffraaj filly who beat the better backed stablemate Sneaky Shark in a great battle to the line. "She is a filly that we have always liked," said Richards, who noted the David Ellis purchased her at Karaka from the Archer Park draft for $65,000. She is the second foal of the Savabeel mare Miss Bluebell and she is closely related to multiple stakes winner Vegas Showgirl, the dam of the great mare Winx, so the filly has much going for her. This was the 6th two-year-old winner that Te Akau has produced for the season.

Also, at Ellerslie former European and Hong Kong galloper Gino Severini gained a narrow win for Grant Cooksley and Bruce Wallace and he has a good record on the Ellerslie track, placed in eight of his 12 runs there. The galloper commenced his racing in Ireland, where he won one of 8. He then went to Hong Kong where he failed to find form and then to NZ. He has now won five times there and Cooksley said he would now likely aim him at the Zabeel Classic.