Residential wins two Guineas in a row

Ascot Park provided a doubledouble on Saturday when Residential added the Southland Guineas to her Dunedin Guineas win a fortnight earlier and La Nouvelle Vague the Invercargill Gold Cup to his Dunedin Cup victory the same days.

The two Guineas even provided the same quinella.

Trained in North Canterbury by John and Karen Parsons, Residential beat his stablemate Starvoia by a nose at Wingatui.

The margin on Saturday was a clear-cut four lengths. Invercargill-trained fillies finished third inboth, Showemup at Wingatui and Dezzies Delight at Ascot Park.

Residential was ridden by the Parsons’ Mauritius-born apprentice Gosen Jogoo who took the filly to an early lead.

He soon handed the lead to the tearaway and wayward Dontpokethetiger but regained the front 500 metres out.

‘‘I had a handful of horse at the 400, no sound of any others close to me so away I went,’’ Jogoo said.

Residential is a daughter of Metropolitan, who contested the two Guineas in 2009, finishing second at Wingatui and fourth at Ascot Park.

Cup winner La Nouvelle Vague, ridden by Leah Hemi, joined game runner-up Oor Wullie at the 500 and finally wore him down near the line.

‘‘He’s reasonably straight forward to ride, you’ve got to get him rolling early, but he made harder work of it than in the Dunedin Cup,’’ Hemi said.

The six-year-old is trained at Riverton by Graham and Michael Eade and sent to them by Philip Jefferies of Palmerston North.

Jefferies, who runs Cloughmore Pedigrees, has been the source of several winners for the Eades.

Jefferies is one of five individuals and two syndicates from various parts of the country who race La Nouvelle Vague.

Keiran McIntosh of Invercargill was charged with the gelding’s early education and during that time he gained the reputation of being a ‘‘tough character’’.

Graham Eade described the horse as clumsy when young and taking time to develop.

Unraced till a five year old, he then won three of his first seven starts.

The latest of those was 10 months ago over 2600 metres on a rain affected track at Riverton.

His time that day was 2 mins 51.10s compared to 2:39.67s on Saturday.