Posavina Potent in G3 Lowland

A positively ridden Posavina proved too potent for her opposition in the Group 3 Homebush Partnership Masterton Lowland Stakes (2100m) at Hawke's Bay on Saturday.

The $70,000 Group 3 event was the penultimate race in the New Zealand Bloodstock Filly of the Year Series and Posavina (Tiger Hill x Dance My Dance, by Sadler's Wells) �picked up her first 6 points with a dominant front-running display for jockey David Walsh and trainer Mark Walker.

Posavina and Walsh took the initiative from the outset, leading the 15 horse field at a solid tempo to ensure anything that got near her was truly running out the 2100m journey.

Rounding for home Posavina had many of her opposition off their bits as she pulled five lengths in front and looked home and hosed.

As it proved, Posavina stuck on as her pedigree suggested while race favourite Keep The Peace (Keeper) battled home strongly to get second and add three points to her already accrued 13, while Miss Sharapova (Ustinov) picked up 1.5 points for finishing third.

Posavina's winning margin was one and a quarter lengths to Keep the Peace, with three and three-quarter lengths to Miss Sharapova in a race winning time of 2.08.70.

The victory was just reward for her owner/breeders Pencarrow Stud who in the same role have produced Our Ella Belle (Encosta De Lago), Pezzaglia (High Chaparral), Guiseppina (Johar), and Via Veneto (Cape Cross) to contest NZB Filly of the Year events this year.

By successful sire Tiger Hill, also the sire of Pencarrow-bred Martial Art who finished sixth in the Group 1 Telecom New Zealand Derby (2400) on the same day, Posavina is bred to get an Oaks trip with her dam by supreme classic producer Sadler's Wells.

Posavina's dam, Dance My Dance, who is expecting to Darci Brahma this spring, produced a bay filly by Holy Roman Emperor this season and she looks set to join Posavina and their two-year-old half-sister by Stravinsky in the Pencarrow racing academy in the coming years.

Posavina will now be set for the final leg of the NZ Filly of the Year Series, the Group 1 New Zealand Oaks (2400m), along with fellow Pencarrow racing fillies Pezzaglia, Pomellato, and Miraflores,�who are all trained by Te Akau�.

Katie Lee has already been crowned the 2009/10 New Zealand Bloodstock Filly of the Year after victories in the Group 1 NZ 1000 Guineas (1600m), the Group 2 Eight Carat Classic (1600m), and the Group 2 Sir Tristram Fillies Classic (2000m).

Click here for the current NZB Filly of the Year standings.