Lyndhurst Stud based Better Than Ready is at full throttle coming to the end of the season with six winners in the past six days to bring his tally to 123 seasonal winners and one of those winners put Siena Grima within striking distance of winning the Sydney apprentice jockeys title for 2025/2026.
New Zealand-bred gelding Ready To Shine carried on his consistent run of form this season with an all-the-way victory in the $160,000 Schweppes Handicap (1200m) at Rosehill.
The Benchmark 78 handicap was the eighth start of the season for Ready To Shine, who has won on three of those occasions. He scored a victory at Warwick Farm on March 4 and again at the same venue on April 15 and then added Saturday’s success at Rosehill. His five-year-old season has also produced two seconds, a third, a fifth and a sixth.
Ready To Shine was awkwardly drawn in gate 12 in a field of 13 for Saturday’s assignment, but he jumped brilliantly from the starting gates and quickly negated that disadvantage.
Sent straight to the lead by in-form apprentice jockey Siena Grima, Ready To Shine controlled the race from the front. He kicked hard at the top of the straight and put himself out of his rivals’ reach, going on to win by half a length.
The Matthew Smith-trained gelding’s 16-start career has now produced five wins, four placings and $246,725 in stakes.
“Too fast, too strong,” Matthew Smith Racing posted on Facebook. “Ready To Shine and Siena Grima flew the gates to lead all the way at Rosehill today over 1200 metres. A super performance from both horse and jockey.”
Ready To Shine was bred by Westbury Stud owner Gerry Harvey. He is by Better Than Ready and was the first foal out of the Makfi mare Luminescent, whose dam Illuminates won four Listed races and placed in the Gr.1 Queen of the Turf Stakes (1500m).
Luminescent’s only other foal to race is Aroha Stone, a daughter of El Roca who has been a four-time winner for Newcastle trainer Nathan Doyle.
Offered by Westbury Stud during the 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Yearling Sale, Ready To Shine was bought by Matthew Smith Racing and Suman Hedge Bloodstock for A$75,000. – NZ Racing Desk.
