Photo: Therese Davis (Race Images)
High-class filly Tajana (Darci Brahma) has taken an impressive step toward a third Group One fillies’ feature for breeder and owner The Oaks Stud.
The Shaune Ritchie and Colm Murray-trained representative opened her classic season at Ruakaka where she overcame trying conditions to land the Gr.3 Northland Breeders’ Stakes (1200m).
“I thought the track and the distance was right against her and I told him (Wiremu Pinn) to ride for luck,” The Oaks Stud General Manager Rick Wiliams said.
“If she had run on for third, fourth or fifth we would have been happy and it just goes to show that good horses just know how to win, even when things aren’t going for them.”
Tajana is on a path toward the Gr.1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1000m) in a bid to join Risque (2015) and the great Seachange (2005) as winners of the Riccarton event for the Cambridge nursery.
“We’ve had a few placings since as well, but this filly looks our best chance since Risque,” Wiliams said.
“She’s only going to get better and certainly wasn’t wound up at Ruakaka. I thought our other filly Cashla Bay might have handled the track better, but she didn’t handle it at all according to Joe Doyle.”
The daughter of the now retired Darci Brahma was coming off a juvenile campaign that netted a Matamata win and placings in the Gr.1 Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes (1400m) and the Gr.3 Colin Jillings Classic (1200m).
“What she did at two was a bonus really, she just didn’t look quite the same filly for the Sires, but still went a huge race,” Williams said.
Tajana is out of the late Sakhee’s Secret mare Sleek Secret, who won on five occasions, and is also the dam of Tajana’s retained winning older sister Cypher.
“She’s with Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott and just got beaten first-up at Taupo last season and then won really well at Pukekohe,” Williams said.
“We ran her at Matamata and thought she would win with the aim of going to the Wellington Guineas (Gr.2, 1400m), but she was galloped on and virtually severed a back tendon.
“I thought we would struggle to save her for a broodmare, but right now she’s on the treadmill and might come back to racing.”
The two-year-old sister Proclaim is in Melbourne with Williams’ son Dean, who is awaiting confirmation of a training partnership with Steve Richards at Flemington.
“She’s the most precocious looking, she’s been in once and has a temperament to die for but has gone shin sore so she’s out for a few weeks,” he said.
“We also got a Satono Aladdin filly before we lost the mare. We’ve got a few fillies out of her, so we have to be happy, you have good luck and bad luck in this game.”
