Gold Rush Finds Second Wind to Outclass the Field

Gold Rush wins the Group 2 J Swap Contractors Matamata Breeders’ Stakes. Photo Credit: Trish Dunell.

There was an upset in the Group 2 J Swap Contractors Matamata
Breeders’ Stakes as Gold Rush (NZ) (So You Think) upstaged a star-studded field of fillies for a gutsy victory in the $100,000 feature.

Gold Rush looked beaten halfway down the straight but found a second wind to fight back brilliantly and score a nose victory.

“What a good effort,” rider Craig Grylls said. “There’s not much of her, she’s not big, but jeez she fought hard.”

Gold Rush became the first stakes winner for first season sire So You Think (NZ) (High Chaparral), himself a Karaka graduate who won 10 Group 1 races and has been inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.

Bred by GD and Mrs HJ Nicholls, Gold Rush was offered by Phoenix Park at the 2015 Premier Sale at Karaka. A daughter of the Oratorio mare Gold Rocks, she was purchased for $60,000 by Wexford Stables trainers Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott. Gold Rocks is raced by a large group of owners that includes Sir Colin Meads.