Premier Sale Graduates Fight Out Avondale Guineas

Graduates of the 2017 Premier Sale at Karaka fought out an exciting finish to Saturday’s $100,000 Group 2 Schweppes Avondale Guineas (2100m) at Ellerslie, the main lead-up to the $1 million Group 1 Vodafone New Zealand Derby (2400m) at the same venue in early March.

Surely Sacred (NZ) (Rock ‘n’ Pop), who was bought for $160,000 from the Waikato Stud draft, claimed victory by a long head from the $250,000 purchase In A Twinkling (Fastnet Rock).

Both horses produced outstanding performances. In A Twinkling slid forward from a wide position to sit outside the front-runner in the back straight, then was in a three-way battle for the lead as that trio went well clear of the rest of the field from the 800-metre mark.

It was Surely Sacred’s job to pull the chasing pack up to those leaders, and he did it brilliantly. He cruised to the front rounding the home turn, then kept held out a determined fightback by In A Twinkling in the last 200 metres.

Trained by Tony Pike for owners Raffles Racing, Surely Sacred has now won three of his five starts and $158,900 in prizemoney. This was his second Group 2 victory, having won the Auckland Guineas (1600m) on New Year’s Day.

“It was a good, tough win as they put the pressure on pretty early,” Pike said. “Vinnie set him alight pretty early and he has hit the front early enough.

“He (Colgan) probably left a little bit of juice in the tank, knowing he had already qualified for the Derby, and he will improve off that again.

“Just the way he travelled up to them today was nice to see, he wasn’t in any trouble and I can’t wait for two weeks’ time.

“This horse has a touch of class on his side. He wandered about a little bit when out there on his own. But they had their chance to run him down and they couldn’t.”

Surely Sacred will return to Ellerslie for the Vodafone New Zealand Derby, which has been won by Karaka graduates Gingernuts (NZ) (Iffraaj) and Vin De Dance (NZ) (Roc de Cambes) in the last two years.