Westbury Stud’s El Roca has had a memorable week with Lucky Patch winning the Group II Bochk Private Bank. Jc Sprint (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday and then promising three year-old White Noise took out the Group III Lucia Valentina Wellington Stakes (1600m) at Otaki in New Zealand on Thursday.
White Noise was the least fancied runner of Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman’s pair in the Black Type feature, but somebody forgot to tell the grey gelding that.
The son of El Roca was sent out an $11.90 prospect and ran away to a dominant win in the three-year-old feature.
Fairly away from the gates, jockey Ryan Elliot elected to settle off the pace with White Noise, while stablemate Turn The Ace took the opposite approach, with jockey Lisa Allpress taking the stakes winner forward early to take a front-running role.
The pressure told on Turn The Ace, who was collared by favourite Unusual Culture soon after turning for home, however, the stable’s chances were not spent, with White Noise breezing on by to win by three-quarters of a length to Unusual Culture, who will do her future racing in Australia.
Forsman was delighted with the winning efforts of White Noise and admitted to being shocked to see the market discount his chances ahead of the race, with the gelding having won two of his previous three starts.
“He has always shown quite a lot of ability, just at times he hasn’t quite put it all together. He just struggled in that bad track at Tauranga last start (when finishing sixth),” Forsman said.
“I was surprised (by his odds). I thought he would be one of the favourites. You had to forgive him that last start but outside of that his form has been pretty good.
“We decided to put the blinkers on, we knew it was going to be a quicker track and they would run a long a bit and just hoped it would sharpen him up, and he did it quite easily I thought in the finish.”
No solid plans have been made with the gelding, who holds a nomination for the Group I New Zealand Derby (2400m) at Ellerslie on March.
“We haven’t really made any plans,” Forsman said. “He has been up a while. He is going to be due a freshen-up at some point and that might be now.
“We will just have a think about it, talk with the owners and see what they want to do and come up with a plan in the next day or two.”
White Noise is the fourth stakes winner for Westbury Stud stallion El Roca, who stands at a fee of $8,000.
He is the best of two winners from unraced Sir Percy (GB) mare White Nymph, a grand-daughter of Group III winner Spring from the family of champion New Zealand sire Pentire (GB). - NZ RAcing Desk
