Last season's Gr.2 Royal Stakes (2000m) winner Hello It's Me made a winning start to her spring campaign when she took out the opening event at Ruakaka yesterday.
The Darci Brahma mare was having her first start since taking out the Ellerslie feature on New Year's Day to round out her three-year-old season. Prepared by the local powerhouse stable of Chris Gibbs and new training partner, Michelle Bradley, Hello It's Me was expected to have too many guns for her five rivals in the rating 82 1200m sprint and so it proved as she cruised clear in the run home to record an effortless victory.
Gibbs was delighted to kick the day off in style as he outlined some ambitious plans for his charge.
"She was a bit chubby and went into it quite fat, so I said to Cameron [Lammas] not to knock her around if he could help it, although she was here to win if she could," he said.
"There was always going to be pace in the race and it suited us right down to the ground. They took each other on, so we couldn't have been happier.
