Dating Completes Stunning Double For Stud

WS celebrated an outstanding day of racing with feature race victories at both North Island venues this afternoon. The Chittick family’s colours were carried to victory by Dating in the Gr 3 Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes at Hawera while at their local meeting it was the home-bred No Excuse Maggie who claimed the Listed Matamata Cup.

Dating was making her first appearance since the Gr 1 AJC Oaks in the autumn but she had placed in a recent trial to further her preparation. “She felt great and she looked a million dollars before the race as well,” successful rider Jonathan Riddell said.

The Graeme and Debbie Rogerson-trained daughter of O’Reilly and the Sound Reason mare Mandate took up a handy sit and she was travelling well before the turn. “She was a fraction slow but Graeme told me to be positive so I rode her forward and got some cover,” Riddell said. “I peeled out and probably got there a fraction early but she won nicely – she’s a very good horse.”

Dating has now won five of her 13 starts with the Listed Ryder Stakes to her credit as a two-year-old, the Gr 3 Desert Gold Stakes at three and now the Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes as a four-year-old. A half-sister to the multiple winners Miracle Miss, Coup Timaru and Big Sweep, she hails from the family of the Gr 1 Auckland Cup winner Senator and the Gr 1 New Zealand St Leger winner Lumley Lass.