Stud home-breds star in Singapore

Waikato Stud graduates were in rare form at Kranji last night to post a winning treble for the Matamata farm. The late O’Reilly’s sons Lord Reilly and O’what A Feeling were successful and a grand evening in Singapore was crowned by the success of Safeer, a Savabeel three-year-old.

Lord O’Reilly is trained by Leslie Khoo who purchased the gelding at Karaka in 2016 for $75,000. Out of the Volksraad mare The Speaker, a three-quarter sister to the Group 1 Wellington Cup winner Willy Smith, the gelding had finished runner-up on debut and comfortably went one better over 1400m under jockey Ryan Curatolo.

“The longer the better for this horse,” Khoo said. “He was very green at his first start. I wanted to put blinkers on, but I was worried he might pull too hard so I went with winkers instead and it’s paid off.”

O’what A Feeling was posting his third win for trainer Shane Baertschiger and ridden to a front-running victory over 1800m by John Powell. “He came out of the barriers better, but he was wandering around a little,” the experienced rider said. “I was happy he was not pulling and we got some easy sectionals through the race.”

A $100,000 Karaka buy, O’What a Feeling is son of Hooked Ona Feeling who is by Zabeel out of the dual Group Two winner Ugachaka. He is a brother to Blue Swede, the winner of eight races for Baertschiger.

The promising Safeer has now won twice from five appearances for trainer Michael Clements following his latest success over 1000m in Michael Rodd’s hands. From the legendary Eight Carat family, he is out of the O’Reilly mare Ahna and is a brother to the recent New Zealand juvenile winner The Real Beel. Safeer was originally purchased for $185,000 at Karaka in 2016 and on-sold for $280,000 at the Ready to Run Sale.