Bonny O'Reilly has signalled her readiness for stakes company
Bonny O’Reilly has signalled her readiness for stakes company and earned a trip to Brisbane with a dominant win at Rosehill.
The Bjorn Baker-trained mare racked up her fourth successive win and sixth from eight starts in a benchmark race on Saturday to set up a tilt at a Listed sprint at Eagle Farm in two weeks.
If she can win that and get her rating up, the four-year-old should gain a start in the Group One Tatt’s Tiara in Brisbane.
With Baker at home on parenting duties, stable representative Maddie Berkeley said Bonny O’Reilly remained untapped.
“She still has more to give and she will go to Brisbane,” Berkeley said.
“There’s a Listed race in two weeks for her. She needs to get her rating up to be able to get into the Group races.”
Jason Collett had Bonny O’Reilly ($3.20 Ladbrokes favourite) in a good position tracking the leaders and let her go in the straight.
She powered home to beat Wild ‘N’ Famous ($9.50) by half a length with Dream Lane ($21) another length third.
On a day honouring the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, the race was named for the late TJ Smith.
Smith’s daughter Gai Waterhouse, also a Hall of Fame inductee, earlier won the longest race on the program with Broadside too powerful over 2000 metres.
Waterhouse’s training partner Adrian Bott said the former New Zealand stayer could back up in next week’s Listed McKell Cup (2400m).
