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Exciting local three-year-old Dan Vegas added a second victory to his unbeaten record with another dominant front-running performance in Saturday’s Truweld Engineering 3YO (1400m) at Ruakaka.
The well-related gelding turned heads at the previous Ruakaka meeting on June 8, leading all the way for a smart debut victory over 1400m. He lined up for his second career appearance over the same course and distance on Saturday, taking on a talented field of three-year-olds, and was every bit as impressive.
Drawn awkwardly in gate 11 of 12, Dan Vegas charged out of the gates to take the lead and move across to the rail inside the first 50m of the race. He never looked back from there and never relinquished his advantage.
Challengers lined up to try to run him down in the straight, but Dan Vegas kicked again for jockey Jasmine Fawcett and maintained a clear lead all the way to the finish. He stopped the clock at 1:22.85 and finished a length and a half in front of Swycho and Full Noise.
Fawcett has been with Dan Vegas every step of the way in his promising career, guiding him to a three-length trial win in early May and then both of his raceday successes.
"He's pretty exciting," she said. "He's a horse that you can't really argue with, so I just let him roll forward to take the lead. I could hear them coming at him in the straight, but he's got a lot of class and he took off again."
A perfect two-from-two career has so far returned $40,250 in stakes for owner-breeders the Little Avondale Trust and Totara Park Stud.
Dan Vegas is by Little Avondale stallion Per Incanto out of the Savabeel mare Miss Bluebell. That makes him a brother to stakes performers Gringotts and Millefiori, while Miss Bluebell's dam Operavega is a half-sister to Vegas Showgirl, the dam of the legendary Winx.
Dan Vegas is trained by Kenny Rae and Krystal Williams.
"His full-brother Gringotts has been going pretty well over in Australia, and people might have heard of another of his relatives called Winx," Rae said.
"This is a good horse in his own right. He won his first start here really well, and I didn't think that was a fluke, but coming into today I thought he'd need to be pretty smart to go back to back. He's done it."
Rae concedes that his days of having Dan Vegas in the stable may be numbered.
"If he passes the vet checks, he's probably going to be sold now," he said. "There's been a bit of interest in him already, including someone who said they'll definitely want to buy him if he ran first or second in this race today.
"We'll see what happens. If he's sold, he's sold, but I won't be disappointed if we end up keeping him either."
Adding to a successful day for the family, close relative Vegas Queen finished third in the Ruakaka NZ's Best Bet in Winter 2YO (1100m) earlier in the afternoon.
Also bred and part-owned by Totara Park Stud's Dirk and Nicki Oberholster, Vegas Queen is by Proisir out of Miss Bluebell's half-sister Miss Vegas. Vegas Queen's placing on Saturday came in her second career start, having finished sixth on debut at the same venue three weeks ago.
"She's a lovely filly that will go places," Rae said. "But realistically she's not a two-year-old type. We might have to take our time with her a little bit."
