A daughter of two-time Riverton Cup (2147m) winner Miss Three Stars (NZ) (Perfectly Ready) lined up on the same raceday on Saturday for the same trainer and jockey, delivering a major victory of her own in the Bupa Care Services Francolin Stakes (1400m).
The fillies and mares’ feature was run over 1400m on Riverton’s biggest raceday of the year, and emerging five-year-old Miss Pearl (NZ) (Tavistock) rose to the occasion with an outstanding come-from-behind win.
Miss Pearl is trained at Ascot Park by Tommy Beckett, who guided Miss Three Stars through a 56-start career that earned more than $300,000 with 11 victories including the 2015 and 2016 Riverton Cups. She also won the Gr.3 Winter Cup (1600m) in 2016.
Miss Three Stars was ridden to 10 of those wins by Samantha Wynne, who put on the purple and white colours again on Saturday to win the Francolin Stakes with that special mare’s first foal.
“It means a lot to win a good race with a daughter of Miss Three Stars, and especially with Sam Wynne in the saddle as well,” Beckett said. “It was a great result.”
Miss Pearl went into Saturday’s race as the winner of only one of her 15 career starts, but the Tavistock mare had collected another six placings including five this season.
Patiently ridden by Wynne, Miss Pearl settled in seventh place before quickening impressively through the Heavy10 ground in the straight. She surged up on the inside of the front-running Emanon (NZ) (Burgundy) – an 11-race winner who was carrying 3kg less with an apprentice allowance. Miss Pearl outfought that rival through a testing final 100m, scoring by a neck.
Miss Pearl’s 16-start career has now produced two wins, six placings and $110,545 in stakes, with Beckett eyeing up a shot at a lucrative new race on the South Island calendar – the inaugural TAB Southern Alps Challenge (1600m) on April 13.
“It was a lovely win today by a very good wee mare,” Beckett said. “It’s taken her a while to learn to do what we want her to do, settle back and have the last run, but she did everything perfectly today.
“We’re qualified for that new $350,000 race in Christchurch in a couple of weeks’ time, so we might as well have a crack at that. We might not win it, but even a placing in a race like that would be a great result.”
