Trainer’s confidence rewarded at Ellerslie
Tony Pike was expecting a bold showing from Cannon Hill (ex Vanilla Essence) at Ellerslie on Tuesday afternoon and he wasn’t disappointed.
The Cambridge trainer’s representative had to overcome a wide barrier in the Rating 75 event over 1400 metres and the son of Ardrossan accomplished that in style.
Cannon Hill drifted off the pace before improving across the top and the four-year-old thundered home down the outside of the track to win going away in the hands of Matthew Cartwright.
“We had freshened her up for the 1400 metres and even in what was a deep race I thought she would go very well,” Pike said.
Cannon Hill was bred by Waikato Stud and they stayed in the ownership group after Pike purchased him out of the Matamata farm’s draft at New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sale draft for $150,000.
He is a son of the unraced Pins mare Vanilla Essence, whose pedigree features the dual Group 1 winner Stratum Star, and her sister won the Listed Lion Red Plate and her daughter Night Raid was a dual stakes winner.
Vanilla Essence, whose only other foal to race has been the winner Jazzclub, produced a colt by Savabeel last season before a return visit to the champion stallion.
The Corner with Garry Chittick
We live in a vastly different world to the world I was born into 80 years ago. Of course, I would not feel the effects of the political values of the time with any likelihood of understanding, perhaps for 30 years, and yet the environment in which my cousins and I were raised in has had an entrenched effect on our lives.
Read More
Ocean Park sires Wednesday winner for Sargent
Ocean Park’s son Hooligan Tommy made it three wins on the bounce with an impressive first-up Randwick victory, further boosting the credentials of his sire, already responsible for four Group 1 winners.
Read More