"Te Akau Lockdown Love"

Welcome to Day 20 of our feature - as our world around us changes indelibly, we want to bring some smiles and sunshine every day - yes a small distraction but it does everyone good to be able to smile when times are tough.

She's a successful woman.

What traits do experts think make a successful woman?

She plays to her strengths.
She is positive.
She's ambitious.
She has a strong support system.
She works hard and persistently.
She doesn't sweat the small stuff.
She is strong of nature and of spirit.
She likes to get on with the business at hand.
She does what she believes in.
She has confidence.
She's determined, intelligent and focused.
Others are in awe of her. She has purpose. She has poise.

She is successful, but she's never done - there is always more, always better, always further to reach, bridges to cross, goals to tick off.

Meet four time Group 1 winner Avantage - she fits the "successful woman" mould perfectly. Decades ago she would have been a suffragette for sure.

Avantage, or "Viva" as we know her, showed us early what she was made of! Metal, guts, courage and heart.

Despite being one of the very last horses to sell in her year, she made her owners glow with pride when she won the Karaka 2YO Million and Group 1 Manawatu Sires' Produce before being named Champion 2YO of her year.

A Group winner on both sides of the Tasman as a three year old, she has really come of age this season as a four year old - winning not one, not two but three Group 1 races.

Calm in the paddock with her best pal Age of Fire (who needs gal pals?) it's a different story on race day. Once on course it is "game on" - the attitude steels up, the mindset changes and she's ready for battle. She is exactly the type of wingman you would want to go into any battle with! Tough, tough, tough.

Avantage (4 m Fastnet Rock - Asavant, by Zabeel) is a dream mare. By a champion sire, out of a very good filly that won the Warstep Stakes (Listed, 2000m), one of the best races in the New Zealand Bloodstock Filly of the Year Series, and Group One placed over 2000 metres, by a champion sire and broodmare sire.

She has it all. Brilliant from the outset when winning her first four in a row, including the Karaka Million 2YO (Restricted Listed, 1200m) - the second victory in a Te Akau four-peat - she was crowned Champion Two-Year-Old after also winning the Sires' Produce Stakes (Gr. 1, 1400m).

At three, she won the Birthday Card Stakes (Gr. 3, 1200m) on Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill Gardens, Sydney, and recently completed an astonishing Group One treble (Telegraph (Gr. 1, 1200m), Haunui Farm Classic (Gr. 1, 1600m), and Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes (Gr. 1, 2000m)) that catapulted her to stardom among NZ thoroughbreds.

Extraordinarily tough and immensely talented, with a pedigree now to the fore, she has dibs on middle distance weight-for-age classics both sides of the Tasman. 

Purchased by David Ellis for $210,000 at the 2017 New Zealand Bloodstock Premier Sale, owned by Te Akau Avantage Syndicate (Mgr: Karyn Fenton-Ellis MNZM), her 10 wins from 17 starts has amassed $1.4 million in prize money.

#loveinthelockdown

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