Sacred Falls (NZ) Five from Five

Class three-year-old Sacred Falls (NZ) took his unbeaten run to five yesterday at Te Rapa beating a first class field in the $70,000 Group 3 James & Annie Sarten Memorial Stakes (1400m).

The victory has seen Sacred Falls’ (O’Reilly x Iguazu's Girl) price for the New Zealand 2000 Guineas reduced once again, with the Tony Pike & Mark Donoghue trained colt now at $1.70 for the New Zealand three-year-old spring feature.

Yesterday’s Group 3 boasted arguably the best field of three-year-olds seen in New Zealand this season with horses including Warhorse (General Nediym), Pure Elegance (Redoute’s Choice), Fix (Iffraaj) and the brave Rollout the Carpet (Holy Roman Emperor).

And it was the latter; Rollout the Carpet, who laid down the challenge in the straight, making the O’Reilly colt put his head down inside the final 200 metres to win by a tough long neck with jockey Leith Innes in the saddle.

“We were very happy with his performance as we had been pretty easy on him since his Hawke’s Bay Guineas victory,” commented co-trainer Tony Pike.

“It was a very strong field and he has never raced against those top fillies like Rollout the Carpet before. He does prefer a firmer track so yesterday’s surface was a little testing for him but he always looked in control.

“We will just keep him ticking over for the next two-and-a-half weeks and hopefully he can produce another good performance in the Guineas.”

Bred and offered by Waikato Stud, Sacred Falls was purchased by Mulcaster Bloodstock from New Zealand Bloodstock’s 2011 Karaka Premier Sale for $160,000. He is now raced by Dato Yap and Bruce Sherwin’s Raffles Dancers (NZ) Ltd. Saturday’s win has taken Sacred Falls’ stakes earnings to over $140,000.