Rockmount Racing

The highs and lows of the thoroughbred racing game are rarely far apart from each other. Rockmount’s own Sienna Star started off this campaign with a very encouraging first up run when third behind Fire Vain and Our Parfumee on July 20th. A VRC meeting at Werribee, Sienna Star was beaten less than ½ a length over 1105 metres and showed she had come back well from a six week spell. Peter Moody then decided to send her to Wangaratta on August 4th for an “easy kill” in a fillies maiden but, sent out a warm favourite, she was inexplicably kicked by another runner behind the barriers and was unable to take part. Five weeks later, a spring campaign cancelled and a large vet bill to boot, Sienna Star is still recovering from the injury sustained on that day. But thanks to the efforts of our veterinarian, Dr Stacy McGregor and the team at Rockmount she will hopefully be back under saddle in a couple of weeks. Surely, although unlikely, steps will be taken at racetracks to prevent this sort of accident happening again. To say “that’s racing” is simply unacceptable.

On a more positive note, Sacha Royale had a very productive campaign and has earned a well deserved break. After her initial win she then ran a strong third at Sandown behind two decent fillies in Li’l Orpen Annie and Lady Phoebe. Luke Nolen left her a lot to do from the 800 metre mark which gave the run even more merit. Her next run was disappointing at Moonee Valley when only running sixth and Peter Moody made the decision to try her next time in blinkers. Sent to Adelaide, Sacha Royale’s first run was cancelled when it coincided with the outbreak of Equine Influenza in New South Wales, but the first of September saw her line up at Morphetville over 1500 metres. An aggressive ride from Jason Benbow saw the filly trying to lead from start to finish and, in a game effort, she finish an extremely creditable second given the circumstances.

Skye Gold has returned to pretraining here at Rockmount and she has grown and developed well during her 6 weeks spell. This Galileo filly will do about 4 weeks with us before heading to Moody’s camp at Caulfield. I am pretty confident of an exciting campaign for this girl.