Successful young trainer Emily Azzopardi isn’t afraid to head interstate in pursuit of feature race success and the 23-year-old’s next target is Thursday night’s heats of the Champion Puppy series (530m) at Angle Park.
Emily, mother to Noah, who turns two in September, and a former jockey, and her partner, Group 1-winning trainer Matt Lanigan, will have ‘Keeping’ runners engaged in each of the three Champion Puppy heats.
While Emily is yet to taste Group success, she came within a “whisker” of winning the G1 National Derby in Sydney earlier this year with runner-up Slingshot Jonesy, while Impulse Buy ran third in the G2 Queensland Futurity last December.
The rising Rowsley star has four Champion Puppy contenders.
Melissa Keeping (Box 3) and Tiffany Keeping (Box 4) will clash in the opening run-off, while Angus Keeping (Box 6) and Monique Keeping (Box 4) will contest the second and third heats, respectively.
WATCH: MELISSA KEEPING (4) continued her purple patch of form at Sandown Park on June 19, racing away from her rivals in 29.998sec to claim her fourth straight win.
“Matt (Lanigan) took them for box-to-box trials at Angle Park last week and they all went really well,” Emily said.
“With stops, it’s about nine hours to Adelaide, so I was happy to get a text with the trial times! But we’ll both be going over on Thursday for the heats.
“Matt saw this race coming up and thought it would suit them. There’s not a lot on age-wise in Victoria at the moment besides the Maturity, and they’re not really up to that.
“They’re really good travellers and we were hoping no other Victorians would go over, which they haven’t! There are only three heats, so hopefully we can get one through to the final.”
“Melissa Keeping is short with stumpy little legs but she’s a real bulldog.”
The ‘Keeping’ quartet is raced by prominent NSW breeders Charmaine Roberts and Shayne Stiff.
Something of a surprise packet, Melissa Keeping, which weighs in at just 25 kilograms, brings exceptional form into her Adelaide assignment, winning four of her past five starts, including victories at The Meadows and Sandown Park.
Litter brother Angus Keeping is a last start winner at Sandown, clocking a smart 29.56sec.
“Angus Keeping has definitely got the most ability out of the lot of them,” Emily said.
“When we first got them, Melissa Keeping wasn’t trialling that great and we thought if any of them were going to be sent back to NSW it would be her.
“She’s short with stumpy little legs but she’s a real bulldog and has won the most races of any of them now.
“Melissa Keeping and Tiffany Keeping aren’t drawn too badly in the first heat, but I’d like to swap their boxes, because ‘Tiffany’ cuts pretty hard to the fence, so that’s my worry.
“I’m not rapt with ‘Angus’’ draw (Box 6). He comes out and takes a couple of steps to the right and ‘Monique’ (Box 4) uses a bit of the track too. I wouldn’t mind seeing ‘Monique’ camped outside something because she likes a chase and a challenge.”
Azzopardi had a ‘Keeping’ victory at Horsham on Tuesday afternoon with Oddball Keeping breaking through with a 410m success at his fifth start.
SA Champion Puppy contender ANGUS KEEPING is a slick last start 29.56sec Sandown winner.
