Tiptronic leads home Matamata trifecta

Dodgy weather and its impact on track conditions wasn’t enough to thwart promising galloper Tiptronic from putting together an early season double at Tauranga on Saturday.

With untimely showers sweeping the course, trainers Graham Richardson and Gavin Parker gambled on Tiptronic still being able to cope with any downgrade, and so it proved as the O’Reilly gelding led home a Matamata trifecta completed by Hello M’Lady and Arraignment.

Last season as a three-year-old, Tiptronic showed any amount of potential when winning at just his second start and putting together a sequence of placings. The most notable of those was his close second to Swissta in the Gr. 2 Great Northern Guineas at Ellerslie, in which the third placegetter was subsequent Australian winner Jon Snow.

The new season began well with a win at Te Aroha last month and now with a rating of 80, Tiptronic is well on the way to taking on stronger company as major summer races loom.

Summer features are also on the radar for the star of the Richardson-Parker team, Volpe Veloce. With seven wins from eight starts as a two and three- Derby year-old, hopes were high that the classy galloper would have a lucrative spring campaign.

That began well with a freshup win in early August, but wet tracks undermined her in her first two major targets, the Gr. 1 Tarzino Trophy and Windsor Park Plate.

Connections made the right call to back off and bring Volpe Veloce back once track conditions were likely to be more favourable.

A break in the spelling paddock and 10 days’ pre-training at JK Farm have Volpe Veloce ready to commence the more serious work of preparing for races such as the Gr. 1 Sistema Railway at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.

Richardson also reported that quality mare Volpe Veloce has completed 10 days of pre-training and is back in the stable as she prepares to tackle some elite level targets in the next few months.