Ancient Girl enjoying life in the Sunshine state
Four-year-old mare Ancient Girl has maintained her perfect record since joining the stable of Steve O’Dea and Matthew Hoysted with a determined victory at the Sunshine Coast on Saturday.
A stakes-winning daughter of Turn Me Loose for Victorian trainer Clint McDonald, Ancient Girl was sold at the Chairman’s Sale for $220,000 earlier this year where she was purchased by Trilogy Racing.
Sent to Queensland, Ancient Girl has now added metropolitan victories at Doomben and the Sunshine Coast for her new connections, with Saturday’s victory a Benchmark 78 Handicap over 1400m.
An on-speed galloper like her Windsor Park Stud sire, Ancient Girl began well from a wide gate (15) and pushed forward to lead under Boris Thornton, who rated the mare to perfection.
Despite being tackled mid-stretch, Ancient Girl dug deep to stave off the challenge of Canasta and Love Sensation and land the prize.
“She has been fantastic and it is obviously great for Trilogy Racing who picked her up and were able to send her up to us,” Hoysted said.
“It is good to get back-to-back wins with her. She was probably lacking a bit of confidence and she probably wasn’t being 100 percent genuine down there in Melbourne.
“She just had to be able to run up to some of her earlier form and she was always going to be really well placed up here and it is great to be able to see her string two together.”
Hoysted was impressed with the resolve shown by the mare over the concluding stages.
“When they got to her, I wasn’t too sure whether she was going to really have a dip but she really responded well late to Boris,” he said.
“It was a fantastic front-running ride. He was able to really control the race and she was pulling away from the late which was really good to see.”
Sold as a yearling for $150,000, Ancient Girl was bred by David Morris and Jason Thomasen.
The winner of the Listed Morphettville Guineas (1600m) last season, Ancient Girl was also narrowly beaten into third in the Group 3 Vanity Stakes (1400m) behind Barb Raider, with Saturday’s victory the fifth win of her career.
With his eldest just four, Turn Me Loose has averaged over 100 mares every season at stud and has seven stakes winners to his credit, headed by Group One winner Licketysplit.
A triple Group One winning son of Iffraaj, Turn Me Loose will stand for a fee of $18,000 + GST at Windsor Park Stud this season and boasts a healthy 5.6 percent stakes-winners to runners.