DUBLEO mare Koonoomoo chose the biggest day in Australian racing to finally break a sequence of ‘near misses’ by powering away from her rivals to record an easy win the Group 3 VRC Herald Sun Stakes (1400m) at Flemington Cup day.
The Simon Vercoe trained mare arrived at headquarters off the back of consecutive seconds, the first of those in the Listed Sportingbet Final at Caulfield on Guineas day.
Koonoomoo since when travelled to Geelong where she was beaten just a half neck in a hotly-contested Black Pearl Stakes over the 1200m.
Despite her recent form, the Mornington visitor started at odds on 25/1 in today’s feature which attracted a high quality field of mares.
Koonoomoo was well back throughout before jockey Hugh Bowman found a saloon passage alongside the inside to strike the lead at the 150m and surge clear for an emphatic win.
“I was instructed to just to ride her quite and I anticipated a strong pace and that’s what we got got from the 600m I just started picking them off,” Bowman said.
“Look, all credit to the mare, all I did was point her in the right direction – it was an armchair ride really.
“She was impressive. I started to worry about the 300m but I just keep her momentum up and like I say I just pointed her in the right direction and it t was a pleasure to be sitting in the box seat.”
The Mornington based galloper has now won five races and placed another eight times from 22 career starts, with earnings of $339,811 for Bruce Pendleburyand fellow part-owners J Niven and P Fell.
Koonoomoo is now a very valuable future breeding proposition being a Group 3 winner free of Danehill blood.
She also carries plenty of speed in her female family being out of Rory’s Jester mare Maximova, which is from Luskin Star mare Style And Grace, which is a half-sister to the dam of Hong Kong Champions Mile winner Jeune King Prawn.
