Trainer Chris Waller and owner Debbie Kepitis were understandably emotional after experiencing the highs and lows of racing during a tumultuous week culminating with Fangirl’s spectacular win at Royal Randwick on Saturday. Fangirl showed she is back to her supreme best with a stunning last-to-first effort in the $1 million 7 Stakes (1600m) . The brilliant mare gave Waller and Kepitis reason to put behind them a horror few days after the passing of their triple Group 1 winner Riff Rocket following complications from colic surgery last Monday.
“It’s been a terrible week,” Waller said. “This is an amazing industry, these horses that we look after so well and when you lose one..
. it’s really tough. “There are so many aspects of it, the strappers, the owners, everyone has been feeling it this week but at least Fangirl has made Debbie smile today.
” Fangirl ($1.75), with jockey James McDonald wearing the famous all-cerise colours of the Ingham family, settled at the rear of the field, went widest on the turn, and zoomed down the outside to score by a half-length from My Oberon ($31) with Royal Patronage ($4.40) a half-length away third.
Waller trained a hat-trick of feature races in quick succession at Randwick with Fangirl’s win coming after the successes of Autumn Glow in the Group 2 Tea Rose Stakes and McHale in the Group 3 Bill Ritchie Handicap. Then, to put the icing on the cake, the Waller-trained Buckaroo won the Group 1 Underwood Stakes at Caulfield within minutes of Fangirl’s win. Waller was quick to praise McDonald and Fangirl after the mare’s outstanding last-to-first romp.
“The good jockeys make my job so much easier,” Waller said. “James has got a bit of Darren Beadman about him. When you get those jockeys in that rich vein of form, it is rare.
“We have a great partnership. We both beat ourselves up and over analyse things but we do work well together. “As for Fangirl, she showed an amazing turn of foot, she is brilliant, I never get tired of watching her.
” Fangirl firmed to $3.50 behind Pride Of Jenni for the Group 1 $5 million King Charles III Stakes (1600m) at Royal Randwick on October 19 – a race Waller’s mare won so emphatically 12 months ago. McDonald got a feature race hat-trick of his own with Fangirl the middle leg complementing his wins on Autumn Glow and then I Am Me in Group 2 The Shorts.
The champion jockey then completed the Quaddie riding Moravia to win the closer. “She’s so good,” McDonald said of Fangirl. “But wasn’t pleased with the position we’re in today.
“I was looking up, and I was saying, ‘Zougotcha...
Oh! Royal Patronage, beautiful! That was the only saving grace, but in saying that she still had to do it the hard way “We’ve all come to realise that she’s one-dimensional, so we all know where she’s going to be, and I think Chris and I, we put our heads together, and obviously we’re going to ride her to her strengths, which we’ve obviously nailed down. “The last prep when she came back, she won like Winx, so you start riding accordingly but she’s not Winx, so we have to come back a notch and ride her properly. “She should have won the Winx Stakes, there’s no two ways about that and that wasn’t her fault.
She was set too much of a task. “But today with the smaller field it was going to work out alright but again, the next race we’re going to have to come up with a bit more.” Waller indicated Fangirl won’t race again before the King Charles which is a similar preparation he set the mare last year.
“Today’s race was a month since her first-up run and it seems to suit her so we will go to the King Charles next,” Waller said. “She’s not a big, heavy horse, so yeah, we’ll see what’s about, and see if we can get it right.” My Oberon, trained by Annabel Neasham and Rob Archibald , ran a blinder to beat all but Fangirl and it’s worth remembering he was third in the King Charles III Stakes last year.
“With the blinkers back on, he has jumped out of the ground, he was terrific,” jockey Chad Schofield said of My Oberon. “We had a good run and he presented to win the race but obviously it took a champion to beat us. I was very proud of him.
” Royal Patronage tuned up for the Epsom Handicap in two weeks with a closing third to Fangirl. “He has gone outstanding,” jockey Tim Clark said. “He just knuckled over and came out really ‘sticky’.
“It meant he raced further back than we would have liked but I thought he was fantastic all the way up the straight.”.
