DOOM DEC 09 - FALVELINA CRUISES IN

By Matthew Grimson and Graham Potter | Friday, December 11, 2009

Doomben, December 9, 2009.
Track - Good 2. Rail - out 11m.
Maiden Plate (3yo Fillies - Set Weights) - 1040m. Time: 59.57
1 Falvelina; 2 Conleys Edition; 3 Move To The Groove.

This was copy-book stuff from Falvelina and jockey Michael Cahill. They jumped well ... settled in a comfortable second placing early ... saved ground on the turn ... secured the shortest way home in the straight and then put all of the pressure on the opposition.

To her credit, the early frontrunner Conleys Edition fought on well enough, but Falvelina had her measure by the 120m mark and, with nothing coming on from behind, it ended up being a pretty soft win for the lightly raced filly who was claiming her first career success in her fourth career start.

WINNER FEEDBACK
Trainer Tony Gollan: “It was a good ride. It was nice to get a good run, you know, when you draw a bad alley. Had a good rider on and he was lucky enough to get a good run.

“I do rate her, yeah I do. She’s been terribly unlucky. Her first two starts were on wet tracks. I always sort of knew she wasn’t a wet tracker after the first start and the second day we still struck a slow track with her. We turned her out and gave her a spell and she was first up after seven months the other day and she found a very good race. She (jockey Kristy Banks) had to do a lot of work on her the other day from another bad alley.

“Today we were content not to ride her as hard and just to see what happened and we were extremely lucky to get as good a run as we did. She was very strong at the end of the 1000 today. She is out of a Flying Spur mare and I do hope she is going to get a lot further.

“Well obviously we’ll try and go to three-year old grade in town, not the top ones or anything like that, but we’d like to pick up a three-year old QTIS race with her in this preparation if we could, you know. I just hope we get all of the bad alleys out of the road now and get some good ones when we get to the harder races.

“I think she has come along terrific. She is a lovely, big filly. She’s a great type. I think she has developed a little bit more. As long as we can get good tracks for her I am sure she will be competitive in whatever we put her in.

“One of my clients bought her from the Rockhampton sale. Formed a syndicate and they are all new owners to the stable apart from the one existing client. It’s been good to win for them, especially in town. She cost $40,000.”

Jockey Michael Cahill: “She was always going to be near the lead ... either in front or near the lead. She was up running second pretty much where we expected her to be. She’s a nice filly, good type of a filly. She’s got a lot of speed and might have a little bit of strength too. She was strong at the finish there, so with a little bit of natural improvement she might be able to get out and run a bit further trip hopefully.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Falvelina): 3.50 out to 4.00.
Favourite (Miss Rye): 3.70 in to 2.70. Finished fourth.

STEWARDS REPORT EXTRACT:
Noblesse Oblige (A. Spinks) was slow to begin. Fluggles (C. McIver) and Miss Rye (L. Cassidy) were tightened for room on jumping away between Googolplex (J. Byrne), which shifted out, and Limealicious (C. Reith), which shifted in and away from Falvelina (M. Cahill).

Near the 800m, Googolplex (J. Byrne) had to be steadied to avoid the heels of Move To The Groove (S. Katsidis), which was yielding ground.

S. Katsidis, rider of Move To The Groove, reported that near the 800m his mount was reluctant to hold a position in the race despite his urgings and lost ground during the middle stages of the event. S. Katsidis further added that Move To The Groove, once placed under pressure in the straight finished the race off very well.

C. Reith, rider of Limealicious, reported to stewards that whilst he was obliged to make use of the horse in the early and middle stages in order to gain a position closer to the fence, he was nevertheless disappointed in the way the horse tired over the concluding stages.