Immediacy, the latest three-year-old to hit the headlines in Australia, began his early education in Hawke’s Bay.
The Tarzino gelding made it three wins from three starts with a dominant victory in last Saturday’s Group 2 A$300,000 Autumn Classic (1800m) at Caulfield and is now seen as a serious contender for the Group 1 A$2million Australian Derby (2400m) at Randwick on April 6.
The TAB bookmakers have shortened his quote for the Derby to $11 and he is now fourth favourite. Riff Rocket and Tom Kitten head the market at $6.00 with New Zealand-trained filly Orchestral next on $8.00.
Immediacy was bred by Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay and is the third stakes winner by the Westbury Stud stallion Tarzino.
The horse was originally offered for sale at the Karaka yearling sales in March 2022 but failed a veterinary scope test and was passed in.
Hastings trainer Guy Lowry was taken with the horse and managed to secure him, outside of the sale ring, for $15,000.
The then colt came to Hawke’s Bay where he was handled and given some early education at Guy and Brigid Lowry’s Okawa property before being sent up to Riverrock Farm in Cambridge to be prepared for the Two-year-old Ready-To-Run sale in November that year.
The horse made $200,000 at auction, with the purchaser being ex-pat New Zealand trainer Trent Busuttin.
Busuttin and his partner Natalie Young took the horse back to Australia where they syndicated him and he has since been a revelation on the racetrack.
After a narrow win on debut over 1500m at Cranbourne on December 29 and again over 1800m at Sandown on January 17, Immediacy took a big step up in class last Saturday and raised his game in spectacular style.
Racing in blinkers for the first time, Immediacy took up a midfield position for jockey Luke Currie but was racing keenly down the back straight. He settled into his work nicely coming down the side of the Caulfield track, then swung out four-wide rounding the home turn to stake his claim.
Immediacy swept to the lead 250m from the finish and raced clear of his rivals, opening up a three length margin over fellow Kiwi-bred Caracas at the line.
“He jumped well today, first time in blinkers,” Currie said.
“That was probably because he had gone five weeks between runs and had the blinkers on. With this run under his belt, it might take that away. He showed a good turn of foot when we came out and I asked him to go.”
Immediacy has already repaid his connections as he has earned A$233,790 for an ownership group headed by Ozzie Kheir and John O’Neill.
His latest win prompted his trainers to look ahead to the Group 1 A$750,000 Rosehill Guineas (2000m) on March 23 and Group 1 Australian Derby (2400m) on April 6.
Busuttin and Young won the latter event with the New Zealand-bred Tavago in 2016, while fellow Kiwi-bred Sangster won the Group 1 Victoria Derby (2500m) for the then-Cambridge-based pair in 2011.
Young was full of praise for Immediacy after last Saturday’s win, adding it was exciting to have a that can put three together three wins from three starts, including a Group 2 race.
“We might have another genuine Derby horse, hopefully,” she said.
“He was awesome today. We weren’t sure about the blinkers, so we rang Luke (Currie) during the week to talk to him about it. We said that the blinkers seemed to make him concentrate a lot better on the track at home.
“He did over-race a touch when the pace slackened, but he was off and gone once he got into the clear.
“We’ll probably head towards the Rosehill Guineas now. It’s good prizemoney, and it gives him a run that way around ahead of the Derby.”
The dam of Immediacy is the three-race winning Pivotal mare But Beautiful, who is a half-sister to two stakes winners in the UK and France.
Grid Girl’s winning Aussie debut
Grid Girl, a three-year-old filly who recorded two third placings from the Hastings stable of Guy Lowry earlier this season, made an auspicious Australian debut on Wednesday, scoring an impressive maiden win over 1400m at Sandown.
The daughter of Time Test was bred by Lowry from the Savabeel mare Chic, who he prepared to win five races.
Grid Girl made her race debut over 1200m at Woodville in last September, overcoming a slow start to finish just a long neck from the winner Danjuro.
She then had her second start, on her home track, three weeks later and was again an unlucky third after being badly hampered inside the last 200m.
The filly was then sold to an Australian buyer and was having her first start from the Melbourne stable of Ben and JD Hayes on Wednesday.
Captured By Love remains unbeaten
All roads now lead to next Saturday’s Group 1 $450,000 Sistema Stakes for Captured By Love after the talented juvenile maintained her unbeaten record in last Saturday’s Group 2 $150,000 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes.
A daughter of Written Tycoon, Captured By Love had already formed an impeccable record, with a comfortable victory on debut preceding a three-length demolition of her rivals in the Group 2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes (1100m) at Trentham in December.
She then started a raging hot $1.40 favourite in the Group 3 Taranaki 2YO Classic (1200m) and, despite unfavourable track conditions, she showed great fighting qualities to score her third victory on the bounce.
That set up an intriguing battle with newcomer Alabama Lass on their home track last Saturday, the latter having stormed to a nine length debut win a fortnight earlier.
Alabama Lass flew the ace barrier to assume the front-running role under Sam Spratt, while Opie Bosson slotted Captured By Love in behind a strong tempo in third.
Bosson moved the filly into contention turning for home, and the two favourites went head-to-head at the 200m, Captured By Love proving too strong for her less-experienced counterpart and stormed clear by 1-3/4 lengths.
The race is a key lead-up to the Sistema Stakes (1200m), to be run at Ellerslie on March 9, where Captured By Love is likely to clash with Karaka Million 2YO Classic winner Velocious, another daughter of boom Australian sire Written Tycoon.
A $525,000 purchase by Te Akau principal David Ellis at the 2023 Magic Millions Gold Coast yearling sale, Captured By Love has earned more than $250,000 in just four starts for the Te Akau 2023 Magic Fillies’ Breeding Syndicate, which Waipukurau’s Michael Ormsby is a small shareholder.
Ormsby is also a small shareholder in the Te Akau No 1 Syndicate, which races Campionessa, who added valuable Australian black-type to her CV with a determined win in last Saturday’s A$300,000 Group 2 Carlton Draught Peter Young Stakes (1800m) at Caulfield.
The high-class six-year-old has put together an outstanding record in New Zealand, winning 10 of her 28 starts along with nine placings and more than $1 million in stakes.
She triumphed in the Group 1 Zabeel Classic (2050m) at Pukekohe on Boxing Day, and she had previously won the Group 2 Rich Hill Mile (1600m), Group 2 Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1400m) and Group 2 Cal Isuzu Stakes (1600m).
The final frontier was Australia, where her only previous start had produced a sixth placing in the Group 1 Australian Cup (2000m) at Flemington last March. Her second visit produced a much better outcome last Saturday.
Vale David Bradford
David Bradford, one of the doyens of New Zealand racing journalists and an administrator for the New Zealand racing industry, passed away peacefully in Auckland on Thursday of last week, aged 91.
Having started out as a cadet reporter with the Thames Star, Bradford moved onto the Rotorua Daily Post before later becoming racing editor of the Auckland Star/8 O’Clock.
A committee member of the Auckland Racing Club and Matamata Racing Club, Bradford pioneered the New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Annual, editing the first three editions before handing over the reins to another legendary New Zealand racing journalist in John Costello.
Bradford took over the editorship of the Racing Annual again in 1998, when he was then the racing editor of the Sunday News.
I will always be indebted to him for giving me a job as the Sunday News correspondent at Central Districts race meetings during the 2000s, when my career as a racing journalist was at crossroads.
Besides his journalistic skills, Bradford managed the Whitford agistment property Lone Oak Lodge, then established Glen Orchard Stud Matamata in partnership with ARC president and New Zealand Racing Conference chairman Arthur Hughes.
Following the death of first wife Nancy in the early 1980s, he moved to Australia for two years but, but returned to New Zealand and joined the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders Association as executive director in 1986.
He would later join Magic Millions New Zealand.
Bradford married second wife Sonia in 1987 and together they formed Bradford Publishing and resumed editorship of the Racing Annual until 2008.
Retired to Havelock North in 2012, Bradford was forced, by failing health, to return to Auckland late last year where he remained until his death last week.
“Dave lived for racing and contributed at many levels, motivated by his love of the sport ahead of monetary reward,” said long-time friend and colleague Dennis Ryan.
“His distinctive writing style embroiled those two elements - entertaining and informative - as he combined his natural story-telling ability and broad experience of horses and their people.
“He was a willing mentor to me and numerous others and could always be relied upon for sound advice.”