Racing: Scent of victory sweet for long-time Kiwi friends

Long-time friends Kevin Gray and Garry Chittick stood on the Randwick victory podium on Saturday and struggled to wipe the smiles from their faces.

Gray, the sprightly Manawatu horseman, celebrated his first trip to Sydney by training Daffodil to a dominant win in the A$500,000 AJC Australian Oaks.

"I'm 72, rising 73, it's a great thrill in my lifetime," he said.

And owner/breeder Chittick cracked the champagne after what he labelled "a great day" for his Waikato Stud, which not only bred Daffodil but also Vision And Power, winner of the Doncaster Mile for expatriate Kiwi jockey Jim Cassidy less than an hour earlier.

There was also success at home for the Chittick family when Bird won the listed Warstep Stakes at Riccarton.

Gray said the AJC Oaks was an afterthought after Daffodil stormed home for a luckless fourth in the New Zealand Oaks at Trentham then ran another fourth against the males in the Manawatu Classic at Awapuni.

Her marathon campaign, which included a victory in the Thousand Guineas, stretched back to September last year.

Gray credited his Manawatu property - "130 acres of top land" - for keeping Daffodil fresh after each run and claimed an advantage over his Australian rivals, trained in more cramped quarters at the city stables.

"They're a bit like caged pigeons," he observed.

All Daffodil needed was some luck in running, Gray said, and she got it thanks to a gun ride from top Sydney jockey Hugh Bowman,, whose agent rang Chittick to secure the mount.

His only knowledge of Daffodil was from a tape of her NZ Oaks run.

"She's such a little filly and she was so relaxed during the run. Other runners were just pushing her wherever they liked and I thought, 'What am I going to do here?' but I just kept her balanced and co-ordinated," Bowman said.

"I was tempted to go around them at the 600m but I thought, 'No, she's been bumped around, I'll just be a bit patient.' They said she's got a good turn of foot and they weren't kidding."

Daffodil was backed in from $16 to $13 with bookmakers, beating the Bart Cummings-trained Think Money by 2 lengths, with the $4.80 favourite Miss Darcey another half-length back.

Her win saw New Zealand stables go one better in the AJC Oaks after the Stephen McKee-trained Boundless' luckless second to Heavenly Glow a year ago.

Bowman hoped Gray and Chittick would send Daffodil to Melbourne in the spring, as they did with their former top mare Legs, the 2006 Kelt Capital Stakes winner.

Daffodil, who returns for a spell, is by No Excuse Needed, out of the O'Reilly mare Spring.

- NZPA