O’Reilly Filly Leads Derby Market

20 February 2012

A top-notch daughter of WS stallion O’Reilly today claimed outright favouritism for the Gr 1 New Zealand Derby with an emphatic winning performance at Ellerslie on Saturday. Silent Achiever was untouched to claim the Gr 2 Avondale Guineas and lead the market for the Blue Riband classic.

The filly bided the time toward the back of the field before she quickly made ground wide near the turn. She quickly coasted to the front in the straight and cruised to the line under a hands and heels ride from james McDonald.

“She got there very quickly and probably a bit early, but she stayed on to the line with ease,” Cambridge trainer Roger James said. “I couldn’t be any more pleased with her and she relaxed beautifully and just outstayed them.”

Bred and raced by Kevin Hickman, Silent Achiever has won four of her six starts and at her previous appearance had triumhped in both the Gr 2 Championship Stakes and the Gr 3 Waikato Guineas. She is out of the winning Zabeel mare Winning Spree who is also the dam of Gr 2 perfomrer Anotherchancetaken (No Excuse Needed).

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.