A Million Dollar Feeling

 

Michael Guerin, NZ Herald reports:

 

Jamie Richards' last Karaka Million is shaping like it will have a familiar feel to it.

The champion trainer's team is peaking at just the right time for New Zealand's richest race meeting at Ellerslie on January 22.

Richards has dominated the Karaka Million meeting for the last five years, winning the $1 million juvenile feature every time in that period, while he has also picked up the Karaka Classic Mile with Probabeel.

It is a domination unlike any other in New Zealand thoroughbred racing but will soon end as Richards heads to Hong Kong next season to take up training there.

He won't end his time here until April at the earliest and the way his team performed at Ellerslie yesterday his annual Karaka Million clean-up could be on again.

That didn't always seem on the cards at times this spring as his 2-year-olds weren't prominent early and his most promising juvenile winners weren't eligible for the Karaka Million.

Then the stable's 2000 Guineas winning 3-year-old Noverre broke down and had to be retired, robbing them of the favourite for the Karaka Classic Mile.

But in true Richards and Te Akau style, they had plenty in reserve and they reaffirmed that with four big winners on Boxing Day at Ellerlie.

Te Akau's 2-year-olds have started to hit their straps and Grace N Grey and Dynastic, both Karaka Million eligible, quinellaed the juvenile race yesterday.

"The filly has a lot of speed and the colt who ran second will only get better so they are both shaping well for the Million," says Richards.

"And we have three or four others who could be heading that way too, so while they are coming to it a bit slower this season, we should have a really good bunch."

Even with Noverre retired, Richards will have the hot favourite for the Karaka Classic Mile with On The Bubbles back to his best in the 3-year-old race.

One of the two juvenile standouts last season, On The Bubbles had a minor throat operation, which can be tricky to come back from, but beautifully-ridden by Opie Bosson, he handed Pareanui Bay his first career defeat in the Uncle Remus.

The Karaka Classic now looks his to lose, especially as Pareanui Bay won't be there.

Richards' other two Ellerslie winners on Boxing Day were Belle En Rouge and Festivity, both in black-type races.

Belle En Rouge capped a busy campaign with a win in the Eight Carat Classic, extending her lead in the NZB Filly of the Year series.

Festivity wore down stablemate Vamos Bebe in the Hallmark Stud Sprint but the race was tinged with some sadness for the stable as Vamos Bebe bled from the nostrils for the second time in her career and has been retired.

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