Ballarat Slam Dunk For Bondarenko

11 May 2012

A return to the left-handed way of going in Melbourne saw Bondarenko rediscover her best form yesterday. The Pins mare was having her first start from Troy Corstens, after a previous stint with Kris Lees in Sydney, at Ballarat and she posted a clear-cut win over 1600 metres in the hands of Glenn Boss.

The four-year-old had recorded a win and two placings in her first preparation last season from John Sadlers barn before she moved to New South Wales. She failed to show her true ability there and is back in familiar hands as Corstens purchased her for $40,000 from WS’s 2009 Premier Sale line-up at Karaka.

Bondarenko is out of the unraced Zabeel mare Match Point, who is a half-sister to the Chittick family’s Gr 1 Otaki-Maori WFA winner Critic (Centaine). It is also the family of the Gr 2 Great Northern Guineas winner and Gr 1 New Zealand Derby runner-up, Prince Kaapstad.

The Corner with Garry Chittick

I keep on proposing my retirement from the burden of a weekly Corner. I make the excuse it is hard to be credible, hard to let the two of you know about anything in our sport that hasn’t been covered before.

27 October 2025

WS-bred On The Lash scores at Sha Tin

Twenty-four hours following the final WS Cox Plate meeting run on the Moonee Valley track of old before it shuts for two years to make way for a new precinct, the race’s 2004 winner, Savabeel, continued his roll of runners, and this time it was via five-year-old On The Lash (ex Candelabra) at Sha Tin.