Beriman and Maher combine for stakes win

Saturday 6 April 2019, 6:11pm

Nikita Beriman and trainer Ciaron Maher have wound back the clock with a stakes race win at Caulfield.

In 2007 Beriman partnered Tears I Cry giving then Warrnambool-based Maher his first Group One victory in the Emirates Stakes at Flemington.

The pair have gone separate ways since with Maher taking on a training partner in David Eustace and growing his business with stables at Caulfield, Ballarat and in Sydney at Warwick Farm.

"I did ride a lot for Ciaron early doors so it's good to get a ride for him and win a nice race," Beriman said.

Her victory in Saturday's Listed Anniversary Vase on Naantali came on top of a treble at Benalla on Friday but was soured with a 15-meeting suspension on a careless riding charge aboard Spirit Of Aquada in the Ladbrokes Handicap.

Beriman said Naantali raced more truly wearing a harsher Norton bit for the first time.

"She's ultra consistent but I think the Norton bit going on today made a real difference," Beriman said.

"She came back underneath me, settled and had a really good turn of foot and that was the key to her."

Backed from $10 into $7.50, Naantali scored by 1-3/4 lengths from Manolo Blaniq ($8.50) with Kemono ($18) a half-head away third.

With Maher and Eustace at the Doncaster Mile meeting at Randwick, assistant-trainer Holy Watts led in a double at her first meeting in Australia.

Maher and Eustace earlier won with Think Bleue in the Polytrack Handicap and Watts said she's only been in Australia for less than two weeks.

A former pupil assistant with Andrew Balding in England for two years, Watts said the opportunity to come to Australia was too good to pass up.

Watts is based at Caulfield and said she was still getting to know the systems Maher and Eustace have in place and also the horses.

"It's a huge challenge, but a huge opportunity," Watts said.

"I want to progress and Ciaron and David are brilliant horsemen and so intellectual in the industry and I want to learn as much as I can from them.

"I'm still learning my way but it's an absolutely fantastic facility in the morning for trackwork."

– 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 »