Awareness made the perfect start to her racing career at Ruakaka on Tuesday when winning the Lindauer Maiden 3YO (1000m) for Te Akau trainer Jamie Richards.
Ridden by apprentice jockey Chelsea Burdan, claiming to 52.5kgs, she was a touch awkward through the early stages when attempting to settle outside the leader, but knuckled down in the straight before gaining ascendency near the line.
“She’d always shown a bit, although she was quite immature, was not great in the feed bin, and needed time to strengthen,” Richards said. “But, having taken her along quietly she is starting to get there now.”
Purchased by Te Akau principal David Ellis for $300,000 as a yearling, Awareness has taken a little longer to make her raceday debut than initially thought.
“She was quite a nice filly when we bought her and thought she could be a readymade two-year-old, but she has just taken time to put it altogether. She’d improved off her good trial at Cambridge, and we went to the races confident that she was ready to run well,” Richards said.
“I thought she was aided by a lovely ride from Chelsea. The inside horse tried to kick up and make things tricky for us, but she used her brains to sit off a bit and the filly found a good kick in the straight.
“It was a nice win and I’m sure if we continue to place her carefully the owners can enjoy more fun with her. She’s got a lovely pedigree and any wins she can add to her page will certainly enhance her value.”
Ellis was thrilled with the win, which brought up Te Akau’s 50th win of the season, and he also highlighted it was a great week for social media connected racing enthusiasts Boys Get Paid, who share in the ownership of Awareness.
“Awareness is the second winner this week that Luke Kemeys and Boys Get Paid are in on, after Combat Queen won on Wednesday at Hastings, and there are a lot of really good owners in the filly,” he said.
For Boys Get Paid founder Luke Kemeys, two wins in a week has been the perfect introduction to ownership for many of his group’s followers.
“It’s great for the guys and gals and some of them went to Ruakaka,” Kemeys said.
“I sat down with Karyn (Fenton-Ellis) and David in August 2018 and said I’d love to find a way for more people to experience what racing a horse is like. We had around 10,000 members (now 15,600) in our Facebook group at that stage, although very few had raced a horse.
“We’ve got five percent in each so that people can feel like they’re an owner, as such, and see how it all works – the updates, spelling, training, racing etc.
“We built a way for everyone to follow their journey and now they’ve both won in the space of a week, it’s unreal, and especially just before Christmas.”
