Having already won the $1.5 million Karaka Millions Three-Year-Old and the Avondale Guineas there is no doubt Orchestral is a special filly. The question is how special?
She is special enough to be a red-hot favourite for the Group 1 Vinery Stakes and the ATC Oaks in Sydney over the next six weeks but longer-term James, who won his sixth NZ Derby on Saturday, has his dream race.
“Maybe she is the horse who can give me that Cox Plate win before I retire,” he muses.
“That is a long way away and maybe it won’t end up being her race but she is so good we can dream.”
James trained Silent Achiever to win the 2012 NZ Derby and later finish third in a Cox Plate so he knows what it takes.
That he dares to compare Orchestral with his beloved Silent Achiever, on their three-year-old careers at least, suggests there may be new peaks to come for the daughter of Savabeel, who was a $625,000 yearling at Karaka.
The win was a testament to the cool of jockey Craig Grylls not just at Ellerslie yesterday but during a phone call two months ago.
He has ridden Orchestral to win on New Year’s Day but was replaced by James McDonald for New Zealand’s richest race, the Karaka Millions, which Orchestral won.
“That is the game we are in and you have to respect those decisions,” says Grylls without a hint of regret.
His professional attitude to being replaced for that race is one reason was he back on Orchestral yesterday to win his third NZ Derby in five years.
“My main job today was to not be unlucky,” smiled Grylls.
“They went a good tempo and I got on the three-wide train and when we all flattened out the race was over. She could have won by more”
Orchestral’s next start will likely be in the Group 1 Vinery at Rosehill on March 30 and she could go to either the ATC Derby a week later or, perhaps more likely, the ATC Oaks on April 13.
She was the undoubted star of a Derby Day dominated by females.
Six-year-old mare Maria Farina downed some of our best sprinters in the $150,000 Haunui Farms Kings Plate, her short, sharp sprint enough to get her home over Dragon Leap.
Positivity was provided at upset in the $150,000 McKee Family Sunline Vase after a mid-race move from Masa Hashizume proved to be the winning of the race, moving her into $ 10-second favouritism for the NZ Oaks.
It was one of three wins on the day for Hashizume, who has worked hard to improve hs craft, the last also coming on another mare as Jaarffi won the first running of the $350,000 Rangitoto Classic.
To round of the huge girl power display Certainly showed she is a class three-year-old winning the $150,000 Mainstream Plumbing Mufhasa Stakes while My Mabelline Girl won the $90,000 Vertical Logistics Nathans Memorial for trainer Kylie Little and in-form jockey Lynsey Satherley.
But they were all only contenders for best actress in a supporting role. Derby Day belonged to Orchestral.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
