I headed to Ellerslie primarily to see Xanadu as I had not seen her since she was a foal at Little Avondale. The maiden race also had a number of first starters, quite a few of them well bred and with trials form.
Watching Xanadu parade was like looking at a high school first XV run onto the field, and there suddenly in the middle of the teenagers is Brad Thorn or Andy Haden. She is some physical specimen; tall and long but very athletic with the most fantastic gaskin. She had just the right amount of mental alertness, on toe, and keen to get on with it, but observant and confident.
Craig Gryll's knew he was on the best horse in the race and rode her accordingly. The stakesplaced Vincent Street got away with cheap sectionals in front but despite Xanadu finding the home turn tricky, as many visiting Ellerslie for the first time do, she outsprinted the Darci Brahma gelding more comfortably than the margin suggests.
Knights Tour paraded acting colty and it will take a good training effort to get him through to the Derby with his manhood intact.
The Maiden 1200m presented a totally different challenge. Apart from the O'Reilly colt Miami Provocateur and the Falkirk filly Springtime, the field lacked types. But as the saying goes, beauty's only skin deep and my eye kept coming back to the little Keeper gelding St Yazin Chris McNab was walking around beneath the trees in the parade ring.
His best supporters will tell you that he has had some very good males in Hong Kong but Keeper is one of those stallions whose fillies are distinctly superior to his colts. Often he can leave a a big type of colt and they can tend to be a bit one-paced. Keeper's only stakeswinner in Hong Kong, Special Days, is not a big horse.
Lucky to be 15.1 hands, St Yazin may have thrown to his damsire Montjeu - making a promising start as a broodmare stallion - for he was still a neat and well balanced type. But is was more his eye that I took a liking to, it looked at you and reeked of honesty and courage. Could he gallop?
He sure could. The Savabeel three-year-old gelding Have No Mercy - a good type for a Savabeel -showed high gate speed to get across early from a wide gate and then sprinted clear early in the straight. Little St Yazin had got back in the early rush and was having difficulty extracting himself from traffic with 300m to run, but once he did he really knuckled down and picked-up Have No Mercy, right on the line.
Xanadu will go onto better things than anything else on yesterdays card but between St Yazin and Have No Mercy, I think one of them will win a nice race one day.
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