Chance to Dance Waltzes In

Te Akau trainers Stephen Autridge & Jamie Richards capped a perfect weekend when Chance To Dance (8 g Teofilo - Crystal Ballet, by Royal Academy) scored fresh-up in the $50,000 Haunui Farm Karaka Classic (Listed, 1600m) on Sunday 24 September at Pukekohe.

Gingernuts (Iffraaj) had provided the training partners with success in the Windsor Park Plate (Gr. 1, 1600m) a day earlier at Hastings, while their only two other starters: Cousteau (Exceed And Excel) and Queen Of The Air (I Am Invincible) finished third and second respectively.

Purchased in March for $260,000 by David Ellis, for Fortuna Syndications, at the inaugural Inglis Chairman's Sale of Elite Racing Prospects in Sydney, Chance To Dance is a former European and Australian galloper and following the sale he finished second in the $2m Sydney Cup (Gr. 1, 3200m), subsequently declared a non-race, and then ran fifth a fortnight later in the rerun.

A winner fresh-up over a mile previously, when beating Ranvet Stakes (Gr. 1, 2000m) winner The United States (Galileo) at Moonee Valley, Chance to Dance had kept up a very competitive gallop for second to subsequent back-to-back winner Deals In Heels (Iffraaj) when trialling on heavy ground over 1000 metres on 22 August at Avondale.

Hot off the win aboard Gingernuts, rider Opie Bosson again produced a faultless performance. Carrying top weight of 60kgs and giving seven kilos to a majority of his 13 opponents, Chance To Dance settled in midfield on the inner. He tracked up two off the rail at the 400m and stayed on strongly between runners to grab ascendency near the line.

“I thought the manner of his win, for a staying horse first up over a mile on an off track, was very impressive and not many horses do what he did,” Ellis said.

“Winning two stakes' races over the weekend is sensational and Steve and Jamie have done a terrific job to win a stakes' race first up with this horse.”

On footing upgraded from Heavy11 to Heavy10 following the first race, Chance To Dance ran the mile in 1:39.9, returning $12.50 & $3.90 on the NZ TAB tote, and extended his record to eight wins from 29 starts and prize money nearing $500,000.

“He's a lovely staying horse that John Galvin and Dave (Ellis) bought in Sydney,” Richards said.

“It was his first run, which he needed, and we probably would have preferred to be at Hastings yesterday on a slightly better track but if he's going to run in the Livamol then he needed the run.”

The weight-for-age $250,000 Livamol Classic (Gr. 1, 2040m): on the third day of the Hawkes Bay Carnival, 7 October, at Hastings.

“He's a class horse and he'd been working with Gingernuts this week and he hadn't given Gingernuts an inch in track work, so he was vulnerable today with the weight, under handicap conditions but he is a quality horse,” said syndicate manager John Galvin.

“We bought him about ten days before the first running of the Sydney Cup. He was a Lloyd Williams castoff, if you like, so Mark Walker recommended to me that we have a close look at him, which we did, and managed to acquire him.

“The plan was always to bring him back to New Zealand, race him here in the spring, before perhaps looking a campaign in Australia.

“Jamie (Richards) said to me a few moments ago, that the bad news was that Gingernuts is going to go to the Livamol and I said that we're pretty happy to take Gingernuts on.”

Chance To Dance was strapped by Melissa Ford.

Photo credit - www.raceimages.co.nz