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.