Illuminati (NZ) Breaks Through in Rotorua Stakes

When Illuminati (NZ) (Keeper) won Saturday’s $50,000 Listed Classic Cuisine Rotorua Stakes (1400m), she capped her rise from a bargain buy at the Ready to Run Sale to an enormously valuable broodmare prospect.

Purchased for just $15,000 at the 2011 Ready to Run Sale, Illuminati has now amassed more than $190,000 in stakes earnings.

Before Saturday she had won eight races and secured minor black type with placings in the Group 3 Winter Cup, White Robe Lodge Handicap and Cuddle Stakes. At Rotorua she became a stakes winner.

Ridden by Trudy Thornton for trainer and part-owner Ben Foote, Illuminati handled the testing track conditions better than any other runner and forged clear in the straight.

Madonna Mia (NZ) (Red Clubs) and Lady Zafira (NZ) (Iffraaj) gave chase, but Illuminati was a long way out of reach and coasted to victory by two and three-quarter lengths.

“She’s got such a big heart,” Thornton said. “She gives her heart and soul. This is a great result.”

Illuminati spent part of this season in the Riccarton Park stable of Terri Rae, for whom she recorded her three stakes placings. This was her first start back in Foote’s stable.

“Terri did a great job with her and her form wasn’t bad down there,” Foote said. “She just never got the track conditions she really likes. Today she did. It’s a well-deserved black-type win and we’re very happy.”

Foote shares ownership of Illuminati with D Bennison, C & C Devitt, B P King, N McElhinney and G R Shewan.

The six-year-old mare has now had 34 starts for nine wins, three seconds, eight thirds and $190,425 in prize-money.