Ticket to Ride wins her South Island debut- Credit: Riccarton Park Facebook Page
A plan to travel south with seven-year-old mare Ticket To Ride has paid off with the new Andrew Carston recruit coming up trumps in the Riccarton Park Function Centre Rating 72 (1600m).
Ticket To Ride had previously won five races from her northern base of Keith and Gavin Opie’s Te Aroha stable.
“She has only been in the stable for about three-and-a-half weeks,” Carston said. “I have a connection with her co-owner Peter Setchell through another horse, and with the other owner and her trainers up there they decided she was best placed in the South Island.
“She obviously arrived in great order and I haven’t done much with her. Her form in the north suggested she was probably going to be hard to beat.”
Ticket To Ride was quick to take up the running and led from start to finish. Under a bold front-running ride from Kozzi Asano she was never troubled and finished under a hands-and-heels ride to win by just under a length.
“It is always good to win a good stakes money race with a mare that is quite high up in the ratings too,” Carston said. “Everyone was happy that the plan paid off which doesn’t happen very often but it is good when it does.”
Carston has no set plan with the daughter of Shocking and will assess how she comes through the race before making any decisions.
“I think she will be quite a sticky horse to place now with her rating but she is off to a good start. It was a good ride from the young fella (Asano), he is riding really good.”
“It couldn’t have worked out any better for her first start down here, let’s hope it continues.”
Carston was also thrilled with the performance from his Group Three winner Miss Federer. The winner of the Woburn Farm 2YO Classic (1200m) last season, Miss Federer was resuming in the NZ Bloodstock Three-Year-Old (1000m) after having had bone chips removed at the end of her last campaign.
“I was enormously happy with her,” he said. “It was a massive relief to see that she was back from her surgery and 100 percent. She will take a massive improvement from the first-up run.”
“She ate her dinner last night and seems happy and sound.”
The daughter of Swiss Ace, who was purchased out of Bradbury Park’s 2018 New Zealand Bloodstock draft, will now head to the Listed New Zealand Bloodstock Stakes Canterbury Belle Stakes (1200m) in a fortnight.