Smiling Eliza at Tramore

Smiling Eliza was back on the flat following her brilliant debut over hurdles. She was back racing over 1m 4f, a distance she has enjoyed success at for us. Mark Enright was riding for the club again at Tramore and he had her pretty handy from the start sitting in about 4th just behind the leaders. The race was roughly 2 laps of the course and they were belting along at a fair old pace. There wasn't much change in position until the real racing got started about 2f out when I thought Eliza was struggling but you write this mare off at your peril because no sooner did I think that than she kicked on, charged into third and kept on going to the line for a share of the prize money.  Fantastic run again from the star of the club. The winner of the race was Moktamel who also just beat her into 3rd at The Curragh and Alex reported the race was won in a time 7 seconds faster than average.

You can see the importance of breeding in race horses if you look at the bloodlines of our two best horses this year - Smiling Eliza is by Rock Of Gibraltar who was a star in the not too distant past and Scealai Aonair is sired by Fastnet Rock, multiple Australian champion. Both of these horses have the same Sire (Danehill) and Grand Sire (Danzig). Scealai Aonair's mother is Propaganda and her father is Sire of Sires, Sadler's Wells. I don't think any of our other horses running are bred as well as these two although Tapenade is by Scorpion, who's the son of Montjeu and the Grandson of Sadler's Wells. Really looking forward to seeing what Tapenade can become whenever Gordon feels he's ready.

Another bit of sad news this week was that Crack of Thunder is injured after his fall on his last run and won't return to running for GERC. Gordon is on the look out for a few more horses to fill the roster.