The $500,000 Group II MVRC Feehan Stakes (1600m) looked a match race on paper between Pride of Jenni and her archrival Mr Brightside and so it came to pass with the daughter of Pride of Dubai producing her dazzling best to hold the Lindsay Park Racing pinup boy at bay.
Trained by Ciaron Maher and ridden by Declan Bates, Pride of Jenni stepped away smartly from gate one and that was that.
She led all the way, opening up at one point to be 12 lengths in front and had enough in the tank at the finish to win by a length and a half over Mr Brightside with Antono and Attrition making up the numbers. They stopped the clock at 1.34.67 seconds.
“I sat on her on Monday morning and I’d been looking forward to tonight ever since,” Bates said.
“I knew she’d just come on from that last run, and she was just on it.
“She was just really ready for a Moonee Valley race where she could just roll along and skip away.
“I was really positive on her too. A lot of the time I do like to just take it easy on her through that first 200 (metres), but I really just let her stride from the word go today and probably got a little breather about the 1000m.
“I asked a lot of her today but I knew around here, on this ground, we were up against a champion in Brightside, and I had to do what I had to do to beat him.
"And, look, I’ve just got an absolute champion of a horse here.”
Pride of Jenni has the overall record of eight wins and 11 placings from 32 starts with prizemoney of $9.1million. She is on track to come to Sydney for the Group I ATC King Charles Stakes with the likelihood she would back up seven days later in the Cox Plate back at Moonee Valley.
“Unbelieveable,” said an emotional Ciaron Maher.
“I just can’t thank the team enough.
“To have her back, that’s what racing is all about. Night’s like this. Really good racing.
“Brilliant job by Dec. He understands her so well, and the atmosphere tonight here was electric.
“I was just rapt to have her back. I thought she was pretty close to right and thankfully she’s right back.”
A $100,000 Inglis Classic purchase from the Segenhoe Stud draft for Tony and Lynn Ottobre’s Cape Schanck Stud, Pride of Jenni was bred by Trelawney Stud and is the first foal of winning O’Reilly mare Sancerre, a daughter of Group I Queensland Oaks winner Vouvray.
Trelawney Stud will be hoping for another Pride of Jenni in the pipeline as Sancerre has a two year-old filly by Per Incanto (USA) called Pouilly Fume and is in foal to Cambridge Stud stallion Hello Youmzain (Fr).
Pride of Jenni is one of four Group I winners for Pride of Dubai, who covered 102 mares last spring at Coolmore at a fee of $22,000 enjoying a resurgence of interest and there is no doubting his ability to get a truly elite horse.
