Belardo Boy (NZ) Overpowers Opposition in Opunake Cup

Karaka 2020 graduate Belardo Boy (NZ) (Belardo) added a fourth black-type win to his career-best season with a power-packed finish in Tuesday’s $100,000 Listed Sinclair Electrical & Refrigeration Opunake Cup (1400m) at Hawera.

Bought by trainer Lisa Latta for $28,000 from Book 2 of Karaka 2020, Belardo Boy has now had 37 starts for 10 wins, seven placings and prize-money of $387,552.

Four of those victories have come from 10 appearances this season, and all of those have been at stakes level. He collected the first black-type win of his career with a barnstorming finish from 14th in a 16-horse field in the Group Three Winter Cup (1600m) at Riccarton last August, and later added the Group Three Metric Mile (1600m) and the Listed AGC Training Stakes (1600m). He also ran third behind Group One winners Puntura (NZ) (Vespa) and Belclare (NZ) (Per Incanto) in the Group Two Manawatu Challenge Stakes (1400m).

Tuesday’s Opunake Cup victory was another top-drawer performance by the seemingly ever-improving five-year-old.

Belardo Boy was the 59-kilogram topweight and was the slowest to leave the starting gates, but he recovered to settle just worse than midfield in seventh.

Jockey Joe Doyle began to warm him up coming down the side of the track, then angled him to the better ground down the outside of the home straight to launch his challenge. The Heavy10 track proved to be no hindrance to Belardo Boy’s acceleration, quickening stylishly to take the lead near the 200-metre mark and draw away for an emphatic two-length win.

“It was a really good win,” Latta said. “It was a few weeks in between runs, but he trialled up nicely (at Foxton on July 4) with Amber Riddell on and pulled up well from that.

“Providing he pulls up well from this race too, he’ll go back down to Riccarton for the Winter Cup again. He has had one or two trips down there, he’s a bit older, so it is not like he is having his first trip down there.”

Photo credit - Race Images Palmerston North