There’s only a certain way she can win but Aerobatics was able to justify her position in one of the world’s biggest racing and breeding concerns with her victory in the $150,000 Darley Crown at Hawkesbury on Saturday.
Giving Darley two stakes wins in separate states in a matter of minutes, Aerobatics responded to a ride that wasn’t as precise as Christian Reith wanted but good enough to deliver a black type win on the four-year-old’s CV.
Aerobatics - Photo by Steve Hart
“She’s only got a 100-metre sprint and I had to go a bit earlier than I wanted,” Reith said.
“I thought she might have been a bit vulnerable for the last 50 metres but she ran well today.”
In a 22-start career, Aerobatics’ win was her first at stakes level, ensuring the daughter of Exceed And Excel, a stallion with impressive results this season, will be highly regarded as a future brood mare for Darley.
It came only moments after Detours claimed the Listed Silk Stocking at the Gold Coast.
“To win two good mares’ races, both black-type races, makes it a good day,” Brad Widdup, assistant trainer to Peter Snowden, said.
Widdup agreed with Reith when he said what you don’t do on Aerobatics is the best way to get a result.
“If you switch her off and you can get her to settle she will find the line,” he said.
Aerobatics ($26) had enough in hand to overhaul Arctic Flight ($14) and win by a half neck with Pipette ($14) another half length away third.
In eight runnings of the Crown, Snowden has now won half of them.
His earlier winners were Sung (2008), Serenissima (2010) and Kanzan (2011).
Kanzan led home a Snowden trifecta, a feat he couldn’t achieve this year with Quidnunc and Forfeiture finishing well back.
“It doesn’t matter,” Widdup said. “As long as we got the winner.”
In a whitewash for the favourites. Dsytopia ($3.30) ran fifth with second pick Miss Stellabelle ($4.40) winding up fourth.
“The weight and the firmer track probably went against her today,” Miss Stellabelle’s jockey Blake Shinn said.
