Embellish Excellent - Win 3 Saturday

Embellish (3 c Savabeel - Bling, by O'Reilly) needed a win in order to press claims for the New Zealand 2000 Guineas (Gr. 1, 1600m) and he did so when taking out the $22,500 Rating 65 1400 metres on Saturday 28 October at Trentham, for rider Opie Bosson.

A lovely stamp of a colt, Embellish launched into calculations for the three-year-old classic following his impressive fresh-up win at Ruakaka, and the latest instalment could only bring smiles to his admirers.

Owned by the Te Akau 2016 Breeding Syndicate (Mgr: Karyn Fenton-Ellis MNZM), the brother to Group One winner Diademe, who subsequently sold for $740,000, Embellish was bought by David Ellis for $775,000 from the draft of Waikato Stud at the New Zealand Bloodstock Premier Yearling Sale.

Away well and handily placed, in the words of commentator Bruce Sherwin, from the 600m:

“Embellish travels sweetly, fourth, (250m), here's Embellish, the favourite, produced by Bosson, he's taking a little while to get to The Bandito but he asks for the supreme effort and Embellish raced to the lead, it's game over, and Embellish is a smart winner of the last.”

The $1.80 favourite, Embellish ran the 1400 metres in 1:24.5 on Dead4 footing.

“Wasn't that a beautiful Opie Bosson ride?” Ellis said. “He's a pretty exciting colt and will now travel on down to Riccarton tomorrow and join the team there.

“We bought this horse to hopefully stand at stud one day and he needs to win a classic race like the 2000 Guineas to pull it off.

“I thought he paraded looking fantastic and the team has had a fantastic day. Winning races at Trentham, and Riccarton, and beaten by a head at Ellerslie, Steve and Jamie are maintaining a very good strike rate of 4.5.”

Needing the win in order to confirm a start in the $500,000 Al Basti Equiworld 2000 Guineas (Gr. 1, 1600m) on 11 November at Riccarton, Embellish was shortened by NZ TAB bookmakers to $4.00 fixed odds favourite, ahead of stable-mate Te Akau Shark (Rip Van Winkle) at $7.00. A move which saw favouritism reversed, as prior to the race Embellish was second favourite ($7.00) behind stable-mate Te Akau Shark at $5.00.

“He had to win because he's stepping up to Group One next time,” said co-trainer Stephen Autridge, who reported it was a beautiful day on course with temperatures up to 20 degrees.

“The big plus is that Opie (Bosson) is over the moon with him and thought he did it very well, so it's all systems go. He said he had plenty left if anything was going to come at him, but nothing did.

“He ate everything down here last night and was on his best behaviour today. The race was the best Guineas' lead up we could find. When we had Xtravagant it was a 3YO 1400m but they changed that to a 1200m, so we took the 1400m because it's the best stepping stone.

“Being a colt and good doing colt, not too much worries him, so two weeks into the Guineas is no problem and two weeks is what you want when everything is going well. Sure, he has to jump on the ferry tomorrow and get down to Christchurch, but I don't think it will worry him too much.”

Embellish was strapped by Teina Walters.