New Zealand Racing, 2012-13

[my miss storm cat]

Happy you got to Alert and will watch replay tomorrow, as well as the others from today.

One word.

Nashville????????????????

Cheers to Veyron for his 2nd, no idea what happened with Ocean Park. I really had thought Final Touch would win.

Touche.... another replay have not yet watched but had hoped...

Ah well.

[_ed_]

Nashville... Never saw that coming. He's a G2 winner and has always looked talented, but I thought he was out of his depth in that race against those horses. I was wrong!

Touche was a bit unlucky. The winner was really perfectly ridden - stole the race from in front. Touche was flying the last bit, though!

Recite v Bounding - WOW. What a race. One of my favourites of the year so far.

Six days till the Derby! A few more horses to get through.

[_ed_]

DEANE MARTIN

3 g Keeper - Ela Nimue
Breeder: Cambridge Stud
Owner: G J Ashby, A D Burrett, S B Doull, P Hay, R J Limbrick, J H Martin, C Morgan, A C Peard, B J Wallace & D West
Trainer: Bruce Wallace
Jockey: Sam Spratt

9 starts
2 wins
2 seconds
1 third

Major races:
1st Championship Stakes Prelude

Best replay to watch:
Championship Stakes Prelude, Ellerslie, 16 December
http://www.nzracing.co.nz/RaceInfo/4...ce-Detail.aspx

Derby odds: 16.00

+ No doubts about his stamina - pedigree is full of it, and he's won a stakes race over 2100m.

- He had a long break after his OK sixth behind Habibi in the G2 Championship Stakes on 1 January. He just returned last weekend with a good fourth over a mile - his last start before the Derby. Will he be race fit?

Briefly the Derby favourite after his stakes win in December, Deane Martin has faded a little and fallen off the radar so far in 2013. He was a bit disappointing in the Championship Stakes, and then he wasn't seen until just last weekend. So he's something of a mystery horse going into the Derby - will he be race fit? The Championship Stakes was the worst race of his career - was it a fluke bad performance that can be thrown out, or was he out of depth in that class? It's really hard to predict what we're going to get from this horse on Derby day.

[_ed_]

I like these Derby preview videos on the NZTR website. Here's a couple more.

Solar Eclipse & Soriano (Debbie Rogerson): http://www.nzracing.co.nz/SystemTemp...ArticleID=5417

Castlzeberg: http://www.nzracing.co.nz/SystemTemp...ArticleID=5369

Valbuena & Deane Martin (filmed before Valbuena's big win!): http://www.nzracing.co.nz/SystemTemp...ArticleID=5367

[my miss storm cat]

Thanks for those, ed, and for all your hard work.

When will we know the field????? Dying here!

[_ed_]

Derby day fields come out in just over one hour.

[_ed_]

Here they are!
http://www.nzracing.co.nz/RaceInfo/4...-Overview.aspx

Valbuena's out.