Promising two year-old Dirty Work filly Summer Schemer crowned a memorable recent run of results for Highden Park when she made the perfect start to her career at Ellerslie on Saturday bringing a timely update for her yearling half-sister headed to Inglis Premier for Crossley Thoroughbreds.
The Shaune Ritchie and Colm Murray-trained two-year-old continued a hot roll for Libby and Sam Bleakley’s Manawatu-based sales preparation and agistment operation.
“It’s been a great month for us with the little racing team we’ve got, we’ve been spoiled,” Libby Bleakley said.
“We’ve got Kids Got Gears with Nayton Mitchell in the South Island and he ran sixth last week and the start before won for us at Riccarton.
“We had to scratch him at Karaka, it was the year they had the flooding and he slipped over on the concrete, so we took him home.
“We’ve got Under Orders with Lisa Latta, she was one we bought ourselves at Karaka to race and she won two weeks ago and ran third on Saturday.”
The daughter of War Decree, a $35,000 purchase, is now likely to head south for the Listed NZB Airfreight Stakes (1600m) and Listed NZB Warstep Stakes (1600m).
“We’ve also got The Diviner, he was another Karaka pass in, with Nayton and he’s just qualified for the Southern Mile Series (1600m) down there, so we’re going to the Grand Final with him which is really exciting,” Bleakley said.
A daughter of Dirty Work, Summer Schemer was secured out of Crossley Thoroughbred’s draft at the Inglis Great Southern Sale for A$60,000.
“We bought her to sell on and had a reserve of $100,000 at Karaka, but she didn’t meet that,” Bleakley said.
“Chris Rutten is a very astute judge and he really liked her as well, so when he spoke highly of her we were quite happy to hold on to her.”
Summer Schemer is now raced by Highden with two overseas partners.
“Constance Cheng and Julia Ho are based in Singapore, it came about because we had a Russian Revolution in the same draft and they purchased her,” Bleakley said.
“When we passed in the Dirty Work filly, Constance got in touch and said we’ll give you 10 percent in the Russian Revolution and you give us 10 percent in the Dirty Work, so it worked out really well.”
Summer Schemer had won both over her lead-up trials ahead of her successful Ellerslie debut.
“Trials to races are quite different when you’re dealing with two-year-olds so you can never be too confident,” Bleakley said.
“Even though she was out on her feet the last little bit, she didn’t give it away and fought even though her legs were like jelly.
“There’s no rush with her, she still needs a bit more education. The intention wasn’t to lead, and it would be nice to see her get some more ringcraft before we take the next step.”
“We’ve sold so many good horse over the years and never did we anticipate we may potentially have one ourselves. It’s wonderfully exciting.” – LOVERACING.NZ News Desk
