15 September 2009 -
Cambridge trainer Ross McCarroll is aiming the promising Danroad three-year-old filly, Tivoli, for black type company after her game win in the Belvedere Farm Maiden at Te Rapa last Friday. McCarroll confirmed the next target for Tivoli will be the Listed $60,500 Soliloquy Stakes (1200m) at the Auckland Racing Club’s premier meeting on September 26.
“I think enough of her to believe she can take the next step up to black type level,” McCarroll said.
“If she goes well in the Soliloquy Stakes then I could pay the late entry fee for the One Thousand Guineas (Gr. 1) at Riccarton in November,” he said.
“She still has a ton of improvement in her,” said McCarroll. “She is a very strong type of filly and very capable.”
McCarroll said the win by Tivoli at Te Rapa did not come as a surprise.
“She has been working well at the track and had trialled well so I half-pie expected her to win,” said McCarroll.
McCarroll purchased Tivoli at the Highview Stud dispersal sale for $4500 and considers he got a real bargain price.
“I had expected to pay a lot more and went to the sale hoping I would buy her,” he said.
McCarroll races Tivoli in partnership with his most loyal long-term stable client, Noel Nicholson, of Havelock North.
“Noel has been with the stable from day one and has raced some of the better horses I have trained over the years,” said McCarroll.
Tivoli was bred by Highview Stud Ltd. Her dam, Astyanax, was also sold at the Highview Stud deplenishing sale for $1100 to Mr A Irvine, of Palmerston North.
Astyanax was in foal to Danroad at the time and she produced a colt last year and was not served.
