Change of plan pays off for Fontein Ruby

Saturday 18 April 2015, 4:43pm

A switch in plans has led to a bigger payday for the owners of Fontein Ruby.

Trainer Robert Smerdon had intended sending Fontein Ruby to Adelaide for a Group Three race but instead kept the filly at Caulfield on Saturday to collect the winner's purse in the Thoroughbred Breeders Victoria VOBIS Gold Reef.

"It was all about going to Adelaide today and I hadn't realised until last weekend that she was eligible for this race," Smerdon said.

"From a pedigree residual point of view she was already a Group Three and a Group Two winner so it's now only a Group One that we're after."

The Caulfield win netted connections $180,000 whereas victory in Adelaide would have been a $73,000 result.

Smerdon said Fontein Ruby would now get her chance at a Group One victory when she heads to Adelaide for the Australasian Oaks (2000m) at Morphettville on May 2.

Fontein Ruby is already a winner over 2000m in the Caulfield Classic last spring but Smerdon said the Morphettville course presented a tougher test.

A $50,000 yearling purchase, Fontein Ruby took her prize money past $1 million on Saturday.

Backed from $2.25 to run the $2.10 favourite, Fontein Ruby led throughout in scoring by 1-3/4 lengths over Jurasound ($3.60) with War Point ($26) three quarters of a length away third.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »