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Underthemoonlight gained an overdue reward at Hawera where she demolished her weight-for-age opposition with a minimum of effort.
Lady Luck hasn’t ridden with the lightly-raced northern five-year-old in recent times and apprentice Tim Johnson left nothing to chance when he cut the corner to set up a runaway victory in Saturday’s Gr.3 Rich Hill Stud Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes.
“In her last couple of starts she has been held up and not getting a fair crack at them or she’s been knocked around,” said Matamata co-breeder, part-owner and trainer Karyn McQuade.“She always tried very hard and she’s popped up in the stipes’ reports a few times.”
The winner of two of her previous 14 starts, Underthemoonlight had placed in each of her last four outings including an unlucky fourth in the Gr.2 Foxbridge Plate behind the talented colt Saracino.She was then narrowly beaten into second on the opening day of the Hawke’s Bay carnival before she was runner-up to Ronchi at Ellerslie where she had trouble finding clear air in the straight.
Underthemoonlight was in behind the pace to the turn at Hawera and when the rest of the field fanned wide, Johnson stayed nearer to the fence. The mare showed good acceleration on the Slow 9 ground to streak clear and score by six lengths.“She travelled down here well and I was very happy with her, but every wet track is different and until they run you don’t really know if they will handle it,” McQuade said.
Slice Of Class was second ahead of Rocknrolla, who came from last, and Bonniegirl, whose stablemate and favourite Honey Rider dropped out to eighth after being prominent to the turn.For Johnson, it was his second major success in Taranaki having ridden his only other black type winner at New Plymouth last season when he successfully combined with Longchamp in the Listed Opunake Cup.