FLASHING Quirindi filly Blood Red Moon swamped her opponents to win yesterday’s $15,000 Les Howard Haulage Willow Tree Cup (1450m) at Quirindi.
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Just when Newcastle gelding Lifou looked like he had fought off all challengers, the Geoff O’Brien-trained three-year-old filly unleashed a brilliant finish to snare a narrow but decisive half length victory over Lifou with Miss Manage a long neck away third.
It was Blood Red Moon’s third win in four starts and mirrored a recent win at Armidale where she had also produced a withering last to first burst to win on a Heavy 10 track.
Yesterday she was at home on a track upgraded to a Good 3 and stamped herself as a thoroughbred of substantial potential.
Allan Chau has ridden her twice for two wins but even he wasn’t confident when she turned for home near last.
“I was panicking a bit,” he admitted to O’Brien.
However he stayed on the rail and moved forwards when the field fanned and then navigated a run three off the fence.
“Once she got in the clear she was never going to get beaten,” he said of a paralysing 200m sprint.
O’Brien knows that sprint well.
He’s been watching it and feeling it first-hand in fast work mornings.
“She always gets to the line in her work too,” he said.
“She always hits the line hard.”
O’Brien trains the mare for a group of Sydney owners who have other metropolitan-trained horses.
“But I reckon she’s the one they they love the best.
“They get so excited.”
And there might be more to get excited about too, Chau reckons.
“I reckon she’ll get 2000m,” he told O’Brien.
“She relaxes so well in her races. She picks up when you ask her.”
O’Brien has always been confident she will get the 2000m but admits he might have been sweating more than Chau as he watched her turning for home at the tail.
