Monday, 6 August 2012: A Brisbane campaign awaits the Newcastle-trained Komodo Blue following her all the way win in the $25,000 Sesquicentennial Cup at Muswellbrook on Sunday.
Ridden by Robert Thompson, Komodo Blue kept intact a perfect record at Muswellbrook of two starts for two wins.
Three starts back she won on the track in heavy going but according to trainer Grant Marshall is better on a firmer track.
“After she won here last time I said I would consider a Brisbane campaign for her and we decided that if she won this race that was where we were definitely going,” Marshall said.
“There are plenty of mares races up there and the tracks up there are drying out now.”
Thompson told Marshall that the win was particularly strong.
“She really kicked and hit the line strongly,” Thompson said.
Thompson also won on the Taree trained Mondial Dame with the seven year old mare scoring her first win in almost three years and smashing the class record.
The mare had not won since scoring in a C2 at Kembla Grange in October 2009 and was having her ninth start for trainer Michael Byers after going through a succession of other stables.
Some years ago Byers trained a mare for the same syndicate that races Mondial Dame called Babe and won three races with her.
“Mondial Dame was running around on a spelling property at Kulnurra and someone suggested they send her to me because of my reputation with training mares,” Byers said.
“The owners remembered me through Babe so I got a phone call and away we went.
“There is a real trick to getting old mares like this to produce their best."
The Luke Griffith trained Dysturb also ran a class record winning over 1000m to give New Zealand apprentice Courtney Van Der Werf her third winner in three days following a double at Scone last Friday.
Tamworth trainer Lesley Jeffries will look at a country cups campaign for Delago Del after he turned in a super staying effort to win the James Irving Memorial (2300m), also in class record time.
Delago Del, ridden by apprentice Patrick Lo, circled the field from near last at the 900m then fought back after hitting the lead in the straight to win by one and a quarter lengths.
Jeffries said races like the Taree Cup later this month, the Lismore Cup next month and the Port Macquarie Cup in October would be considered for Delago Del.
“Finding suitable middle distance races for him is going to be the challenge and most of them are Cup races,” Jeffries said.
