Caulfield has been a happy hunting ground for Mrs Chrissie, and the talented New Zealand-bred returned there on Saturday to score a stylish win in the A$80,000 MRC Plus Handicap (1100m).
Mrs Chrissie recorded her fifth career victory at Sandown. Photo: Scott Barbour (Racing Photos)
It was the fourth win of a 14-start career for the daughter of Per Incanto, and two of those wins have come from just four appearances at Caulfield.
The five-year-old was ridden on Saturday by Carleen Hefel, whose six rides on the mare have produced three wins, two seconds and a fourth.
The pair settled in second in Saturday’s Benchmark 78 sprint before pouncing at the home turn. Mrs Chrissie had tackled and headed the front-running Excess by the 200m mark, and she edged ahead over the concluding stages of the race to win by three-quarters of a length.
“I had a good feeling today when she was very relaxed going around to the gates and then was good in the gates,” Hefel said. “She’s a mare that sometimes has different tendencies in the gates, but she was good today.
“She was able to jump away well. Another horse crossed her, but she just switched off and travelled so sweetly, then quickened off it perfectly.
“She was a bit disappointing in her previous race, but she had her A-game back today.
“I just had to trust my horse. I knew that, at her best, she’s very good and can win in this sort of grade.”
Mrs Chrissie is trained by Ciaron Maher, who was represented at Caulfield on Saturday by Jack Turnbull.
“She had a couple of races in Sydney, then just lightened off a little bit when she travelled back down,” Turnbull said. “We ran her at Ballarat last start and she just wasn’t at her best that day, so we backed off her a bit after that.
“She was really good today. Carleen knows her extremely well, and it’s great to see the mare back in winning form in town. 1100m seems to be her sweet spot, and she likes Caulfield. We’ll keep trying to pick out suitable races like this one, and the majority owner would love to breed from her one day, so we’ll see if we can focus on a bit of black type at some point down the track.”
Mrs Chrissie was bred by Chris Doak & Rosie Ealden and was exported to Australia as an unraced two-year-old. She is out of the O’Reilly mare Turf Fire, who herself won nine races and placed in the Gr.3 Stewards’ Stakes (1200m). Turf Fire is the dam of three winners from five foals to race, headed by the stakes-placed Don Carlo. Turf Fire produced fillies by Time Test in 2019, Per Incanto in 2020 and Super Seth in 2021. – NZ Racing Desk.
