Royal Success in Rising Stars' Final

The Informant reports:

Ellerslie will play host to the inaugural $80,000 Dunstan Feeds Rising Stars Championship Final on Boxing Day, where Royal Success will be out to become a fitting winner with his fifth win from just six career starts.

With a series of qualifiers held alongside the popular Dunstan Stayers' Championship Series, the Rising Stars Series has been enthusiastically received. The qualifiers have featured strong fields and outstanding performances - few more so than the last-start win by Royal Success at Trentham.

The son of Savabeel escaped through the front of the starting gates prior to the 1400-metre race, dislodging his rider and taking some time to be recaptured. He had to pass a veterinary examination before being cleared to start in the race, which he convincingly won by half a length from Henree Winkler and Mr Luigi.

“With what happened before the race started, it's fair to say he would have had excuses if he hadn't won,” co-trainer Jamie Richards said. “So for him to come out after that and win so strongly, in what was his first try at Rating 85 level, was very pleasing and pretty impressive.”

Since running fifth on debut at Woodville in late April, Royal Success has strung together four consecutive wins. He won a maiden by a length and a half at Counties, then beat the subsequent winner Bang by six lengths in a Rating 65 at Otaki. The step up to Rating 75 brought another win at Te Rapa before he capped the sequence with his impressive Trentham display.

Royal Success will jump from gate 12 in the Rising Stars Final and will be ridden by Opie Bosson, who recently reassumed his former role as Te Akau's number one rider.

While all of the gelding's wins to date have come at left-handed tracks, Richards expects Royal Success to have no trouble at Ellerslie on Monday.

“He trialled that way around at Te Aroha and went really well,” he said. “We don't see it being a problem for him. He's not one of those horses who pricks his ears and likes to have a good look at his surroundings. He's a very competitive horse who just pins his ears back and gets on with it. He's been working well and we're expecting him to run a good race.”

Further down the track, Royal Success holds a nomination for next month's Gr. 1 Harcourts Thorndon Mile at Trentham.

“We'll assess him after Monday and make a decision on whether he has a freshen-up or keeps racing,” Richards said. “We're mindful that we don't want to start him on too many very firm tracks.

“But if he did happen to produce a very impressive performance on Monday, there's some pretty serious mile races over the Trentham carnival that we could look at.”

The Rising Stars Final also features stakes performers Ruud Not Too, Alamer and Sultan of Swing along with form runners such as Henree Winkler, Caprikosa, Dark And Stormy and Keely Be.