3-year-olds low ‘flyers’ on Air New Zealand day

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 30

3-year-olds low ‘flyers’ on Air New Zealand day

By

J. J. BOYLE

Three-year-olds left a 'Stamp of excellence on a splendid programme of racing on Air New Zealand Stakes day at Ellerslie on Saturday.

Royal Heights consolidated her position as the best of the three-year-old fillies bf winning the Royal Stakes. Bonecrusher beat his elders with style and authority in the weight-for-age Air New Zealand Stakes. Star Board, the top ranking two-year-old last season, came back after an enforced absence from racing with a storming run from last for a brilliant win against the sprinters in The Orient.

Bonecrusher’s weight-for-age victory in a race that has been well promoted and strategically placed to make it one of the great attractions of the New Zealand racing year will come under the closest of attention in Australia, and, before the year is out, perhaps also

in Japan. “We’ve had the Japan Cup in the back of our mind for some time,” Bonecrusher’s Ellerslie trainer, Frank Ritchie, said after the chestnut’s eighth win on Saturday.

But before that race late this year Bonecrusher will tilt at Australia’s best three-year-olds and perhaps his elders in rich races at the Sydney autumn carnival.

The sAust34o,ooo A.J.C. Derby on March 29 will be the prime target and Ritchie will decide later if the sAustsoo,ooo Tancred Stakes, run a week earlier, will be the leadup race. Bonecrusher showed on Saturday the powers of acceleration that distinguish the class horse from the merely talented. Gary Stewart kicked him away to a wide lead up the straight, then when he had the post close at hand “cuddled” the chestnut, to see the race through by a diminishing

margin of half a length from Abit Leica.

To his great surprise Stewart was suspended from race riding for one day after being charged with riding “in a careless manner” in the final stages.

Stewart said he was at all times aware of the progress made by Abit Leica in his late charge down on the Inside but found nothing to concern him.

There was a flurry of anxiety in the crowd when Abit Leica, under vigorous urging from David Walsh, squeezed into a cramped space, brushing the inside rail as he did so, in a bid to capitalise on the last run at the champion three-year-old. But Stewart had read the situation well, showing the same fine judgment of pace that had distinguished his handling of the young star in his earlier triumphs. Abit Leica, like Bonecrusher, is booked for

Sydney, but before then he will probably tilt at the rich weight-for-age metric mile at Trentham on March 8. That race could now be on the programme for Canterbury Belle, probably as an alternative to an early departure for Sydney. Canterbury Belle was a battling but well beaten fifth in the Air New Zealand Stakes. The demands of 2000 m at this level found the Riccarton speedster wanting on Saturday. “She was cruising behind Bonecrusher before the home turn, but in another three or four strides she was just plodding," Grant Cooksley commented.

“It looks as if she’s a miler. And there’s good money about for a good miler,” Cooksley said.

Earlier on Saturday Cooksley landed third place by way of the inquiry room on Canterbury Belle’s stablemate, The Thief, in the Royal

Royal Heights was a dominating favourite for this $22,500 2000 m event in the Wrightson Series, and won with ease. But the battle for the minors started to look something like a battle for survival when the giantsized Empire Rose went sharply off line when under pressure in the straight. Empire Rose came in second, Hexagonal third, and a badly checked The Thief fourth, but the result of an inquiry was easily predictable: Empire Rose was disqualified and The Thief joined Hexagonal in the minor dividendbearing positions.

The Thief had started wide and was forced even wider leaving the home straight so there was much to like about her run.

Although a Sydney campaign for Canterbury Belle is now in doubt, The Thief could land up there for a tilt at the A.J.C. Oaks.