Promising three-year-old Retrostar(NZ) (Vespa) headlined an impressive winning treble for Andrew Forsman at Tauherenikau on Wednesday.
Retrostar was making just his third appearance to the races and the first since late August, where he won his maiden convincingly on the Cambridge Synthetic over 1550m. Despite the ease of that victory, the son of Vespa was underrated in the market and did himself no favours early, jumping away slowly to settle at the tail of the field.
The tempo was ramped up at the 800m, with Gohugo taking over, while leading apprentice Lily Sutherland began to circle the field aboard Retrostar, and with plenty still to do at the 200m, the gelding flew over the top of his rivals late to score by three-quarters of a length to Hickory Jack.
Forsman was rapt with the performance, having anticipated the gelding may need a distance further than Wednesday’s 1400m journey to be back in the winner’s circle.
“It was a great effort, he’d had a couple of quiet trials leading into it and we thought he may need the run,” he said.
“I think with what happened mid-race, with a bit of tempo put into it, Lily had to go back and he was really strong late. He impressed me to be honest, I thought it might take him until we got back up to a mile to see that sort of an effort.
“It was a great performance from a three-year-old against older horses.”
Retrostar’s part-owner Paul Stopforth outlaid $35,000 to purchase the gelding at the 2023 Karaka Yearling Sales, an investment that makes him eligible for a much bigger prize come January 25, with the $1.5 million Karaka Millions 3YO (1600m) on Forsman’s radar.
“I thought we may go to the three-year-old mile on New Year’s Day at Ellerslie, having just had the three race-day starts, getting a look around Ellerslie would give him some good exposure and he is a Karaka Millions eligible horse,” Forsman said.
“We’ll just have to work out whether we do that, or consider going to Wellington instead, the Levin Classic (Gr.2, 1400m) is an option.”
Earlier on the card at Tauherenikau, Forsman entrusted the country’s top apprentice with Sabots D’or, a lightly-raced mare having her fifth start in the Happy Birthday Rob (Chalky) Calder (1600m).
A contrast to her stablemate, Sabots D’or began positively and took up the pacemaking role early, with a break-away on the home turn proving to be the winning move by Sutherland, holding out the charge of Zaravela by a long head.
A $220,000 investment by Forsman and Andrew Williams Bloodstock at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale in 2022, Sabots D’Or has been a late-maturing mare and Forsman was pleased to see her reward patient connections.
“She’s just taken a lot of time, when we bought her, which feels like a long time ago now, she’s just kept growing and changing shape,” Forsman said. “We’ve tried to do things with her, but she clearly hasn’t been mature and been able to cope with it all.
“I’m very grateful to a good ownership group, they’ve been very patient to this point and hopefully now, they can start to be rewarded.”
Forsman’s perfect afternoon was completed by Unequivocal, a Pencarrow Stud mare aiming to secure a place in the Dunstan Horsefeeds Stayers Championship Final (2400m) on Boxing Day at Ellerslie.
Unequivocal would have to take out the Rating 65 middle-distance contest to do so and she did just that in dominant style, settling back before pouncing on the lead at the 200m and storming clear by an extending 3 – ½ lengths.
“We were aiming to go down there to gain points for the Dunstan Final on Boxing Day, so it’s worked out really well,” Forsman said.
“It’s a hard thing to do, doing a two-day trip and staying overnight and she handled it all very well. It was a very soft win in the end, I just love the fact that the longer the race went, the more dominant she looked.”
Bred at Pencarrow Stud and owned by Sir Peter Vela, Unequivocal is a daughter of Brighthill Farm stallion Eminent.
