Flute future on song
SOMETIMES the cheap buys are the best buys.
Just ask Fill The Flute’s owner Peter Sanders. The local businessman and trainer Jamie Edwards purchased the daughter of Statue of Liberty at the sales for just $7000 as a stable companion for another weanling just over two years ago.
And now connections are planning a trip to the city after Fill The Flute won impressively on her race debut at Camperdown last week.
“The plan is to go to The Valley in two weeks,” Sanders said.
“I just want to get a line through her. I know we are throwing her in the deep end but sometimes you’ve got to do that.
“What we found at in the race at Camperdown, (jockey) Craig Robertson, as soon as he used the whip she swished her tail. He did it three times and she swished the tail three times, she was three lengths in front and slowed down.
“I don’t think she weakened I just think she didn’t like the whip.”
Sanders admits expectations were low when they bought Fill The Flute at the sales given her price tag.
But she started to show she would be more than just a friend for rising stable star Minyinga and connections decided to give her a crack at the races. And aren’t they glad they did. “We bought her as a mate for Minyinga because she was a standalone. She was going to be in the paddock on her own,” Sanders said.
“After she was weaned we didn’t have a mate for her. So we bought Fill The Flute and she’s turned out to be a very quick horse.
“We didn’t know what we were going to get, we didn’t even know if we were going to keep her. But we decided to, we thought ‘stuff it we will keep her and see what happens’ and we have been repaid in kind so quickly.”
It’s been a good January for Sanders, whose home-bred horse Crossbearer broke his maiden at Kilmore. Sanders bred the horse in partnership with Jim Mann, who passed away unexpectedly last year.
In claiming his maiden Crossbearer became the duo’s 14th homebred horse to become a winner.
“Jim would be up there smiling. We said that when Crossbearer won,” Sanders said.