Well-bred filly too good

6 November 2014

Gracehill showed she had inherited a good measure of the family ability with a perfect debut performance at Tauranga on Saturday.

It was in fact the same meeting that her black-type dam Irish Colleen debuted for success at some seven years earlier.

A trial winner last month, the three-year-old finished off determinedly to win over 1400 metres at the first time of asking.

Prepared by Roger James, she is a daughter of O’Reilly and the first foal of the Shinko King mare Irish Colleen. She was the winner of seven races, including the Gr 2 Concorde Handicap and the Listed Rotorua Stakes.

A direct female descendant of the former champion Australian mare Maybe Mahal, Gracehill was purchased by James out of WS’s Select Sale consignment in 2013. The Cambridge trainer also bought her brother for the same price at Karaka earlier this year.

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.