Te Rapa: No Winter Wasteland

Surely one of the best initiatives in local racing since the millennium has been the renovation and sand slitting of the Te Rapa track.

Before the refurbishment it was a photo finish between Te Rapa and Trentham for the rights to the saying "the punters graveyard", but any claim to that tag has long since passed as now year round it provides punters and horses with arguably the fairest and most consistent surface in the country.

As a consequence the autumn, and even some of the winter form on the track can measure up anywhere and the form from last Saturday's meeting should prove no exception.

The No Excuse Needed colt Under The Sun won a competitive juvenile contest nicely enough and has the physical scope to improve further at three. He also joins a couple of other raceday winners with trials placings behind Pussy O'Reilly, further enhancing the reputation of that filly.

Under The Sun's sire tends to be a little underrated with his stakeswinners to runners a more than respectable 8%. Interestingly the Roger James trained colt is bred on a similar cross to Carlton House the favourite for next weekends English Derby - both are by sons of Machiavellian (Street Cry in Carlton House's case), with Carlton House being out of a Bustino mare and Under The Sun being from a Maroof mare, who himself was a son of a Bustino mare.

So Pristine may not have beaten an overly strong field but she never looked comfortable on the soft track at any stage - she was zero placings from three starts on soft prior to Saturday. She's had her quirk's in the past but with maturity the rising six-year-old mare can land a much stronger race than the Dunstan Stayers Final next season.

At no stage in the home straight bar the finishing line did Kekova look a winning hope in the Special Conditions Maiden 1400m. Subsequently it was reported that her jockey had dropped his whip 200m from the finish but in fairness to Mark Sweeney the three-year-old filly didn't look at home in the testing conditions but still showed a ton of courage over the closing stages to win narrowly. A long barrelled strongly made filly, not dissimilar in appearance and pluck to another Elusive City female in Hinemoa, connections have good reason to feel she may show similar improvement between three and four years.

It was a shame Safari and Captain Kirk were late scratchings at the barrier but the Rating 80 1400m should still prove to be one of the strongest form races for some months. While Geographer, who looks set to do his future racing in Hong Kong, won well, I felt the next three home lost little in comparison.

Pure Cruising was second-up after a long lay-off recovering from serious leg injuries so you could forgive a horse who won his last start before the break at 1600m (over Veyron and So Pristine to boot) to be a little dour second-up over 1400m. And that he was, although the soft track may have inconvenienced him, especially when getting balanced to make his final run at the 200m.

Pure Theatre the sire of Pure Cruising has an interesting background. Conceived in Kentucky, foaled at The Oaks in Cambridge and sold at Karaka for $850,000, a winner on debut defeating Distinctly Secret at Hastings before an Australian campaign that saw him win the Group Three Caulfield Guineas Prelude quite brilliantly followed by a third place finish to Lohnro and Ustinov in the Guineas itself.

I can clearly recall Pure Theatre at Karaka. He was the most magnificent of yearlings, not big but very athletic with a most attractive masculine head and a small white star. $850,000 was a lot of money at Karaka in those days and predictably all the good judges liked him with the early bidding action resembling the opening minutes on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Sadly the son of Nureyev never recaptured that race form and his record as a stallion, albeit that he would not have served a great quality of mare in Queensland, has been decidedly average and not befitting a horse of his type, pedigree and ability. Sound familiar?

It's hard to get too optimistic over day to day racing propositions but Pure Cruising looks capable of being competitive in pattern company at 1600m next season and handicap races such as the Coupland and Richhill Miles may not be completely out of the question.

Third-place-getter Phar Cry may have been inconvenienced by being in the worst of the chopped-up ground on the rail on Saturday. The finishing kick which highlighted her brief initial campaign last season has deserted her this time in and although she is up in class and has been ridden closer to the pace in her new campaign, she could just be getting slightly dour as some horses are prone to do as they mature.

Art Beat, who finished nicely for fourth was giving weight to all her conquerors and with her proven ability to handle wet tracks looks in for a profitable winter.

Horses to Follow: So Pristine and Phar Cry