Promising mare Missed The Alarm (NZ) (Rip Van Winkle) confirmed her rating as a future staying prospect when she skipped half a dozen race classes to win at Eagle Farm.
Trainer Steve O’Dea had planned to take Missed The Alarm to Grafton on Monday but decided to set the mare for Saturdays race instead.
Missed The Alarm ($4.80) proved O’Dea a good judge when she got up to win the Drivers Recruitment Handicap (1815m).
It was the ninth metropolitan win for the season for the combination of O’Dea, his biggest clients in Proven Thoroughbred and apprentice Stephanie Thornton.
“Missed The Alarm was only a Class 1 horse and there was a race for her at Grafton. But she had done so well I decided to skip a few classes and bring her to town,” O’Dea said.
“She is a big rangy mare and I think she has a bit of a future as a stayer.”
Missed The Alarm, who was originally trained by John Thompson in Sydney, is bred to be a top stayer being by sire Rip Van Winkle out of a Volksraad mare in Kharmann Ghia. She was purchased for $60,000 out of Windsor Park Stud’s 2017 New Zealand Bloodstock Premier Yearling draft.
Thornton said Missed The Alarm had got to the leaders quickly and fought on well in the final 100m.
Earlier in the day Ballina trainer Nathan Ensby completed the best week of his career when Partnership (NZ) (Tavistock) gave him his first metropolitan Saturday winner at Eagle Farm.
Ensby trains horses 19 horses and mainly concentrates on the NSW northern rivers racing but has gradually built up his team to city-class in recent months.
Partnership ($7) got up in the final few strides to win the Suez Pro Skips Handicap (2200m) by a short head.
“We had a winner at Grafton on Monday and one at Lismore on Tuesday so to get my first metropolitan winner completes a great week,” Ensby said.
The win was all the better because Partnership was ridden by Ensby’s close friend in jockey Nori Masuda who rides most of the trainer’s horses.
“I have been mates with Nori for years going back to the days we worked together in Ballina. I said when I got a trainer’s licence he could ride them all,” Ensby said.
Masuda said Partnership had raced like a true stayer and had put in a big lunge on the line.
