Underthemoonlight stars in win
The highest hopes are held for Underthemoonlight, although it will be a while before she is asked to realise those expectations.
The daughter of El Hermano doubled her black type tally yesterday when she added the Listed Seeka Tauranga Classic yesterday to her record that also features success in the group three Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes last year.
“She’s going for a break now and she’ll miss those early races next season at Hastings,” said part-owner and co-breeder Hamish McQuade, whose wife Karyn is the mare’s trainer.
“But I truly believe she is a group one horse as long as she can get her toe into the ground.
“She’s a fantastic mare and she’s had no luck at her last three starts — she’s been caught three and four wide and left a sitting duck.”
Underthemoonlight enjoyed a much more economical run at Tauranga where jockey Cameron Lammas tucked her in behind the pace before improving between runners to lodge his challenge 300 metres from home.
“Cameron rode a lovely race and they got the job done,” McQuade said. “At the 600 I was screaming — she was just bolting.”
A half-sister to the group performer Storming The Tower, Underthemoonlight got the better of the pacemaker and favourite New York Minute and scooted clear to score by three and a half lengths.
“She won quite easily in the end even though she didn’t handle the ground all that well,” said Lammas, a substitute for regular rider Michael Coleman who has recently undergone knee surgery. The Riccarton-trained mare Meursault made late ground to cut Galaxy Miss out of third money.