Lindsay Park will look to target the Spring with promising three-year-old filly Madiyya, who won her third race in a row at Caulfield on Saturday.
The Ben, Will & Jd Hayes trained daughter of Super Seth looped the field in the Rod Griffiths Handicap (1600m) at benchmark 78 level, scoring by a short neck as a heavily supported $1.75 favourite.
Drawn wide, jockey Luke Currie was content to sit back in the field and kept Madiyya out of trouble with a long, sustained run, comfortably holding I Only Wish ($10) on the line, with 1-3/4 lengths back to Belcony ($21) in third.
Out of a Van Nistelrooy mare Ruqqaya, Madiyya is a half-sister to Zayydani, who won the Group 2 Matriarch Stakes (2000m) in 2021, just five months after JD Hayes replaced cousin Tom Dabernig at Lindsay Park.
“We know the family very well, and she’s very well bred,” Ben Hayes said.
“I think the way she won today, she was strong throughout the line with everything right.
“Maybe next prep (we’ll get to 2000m), but she is a physically not very big horse.
“So she’s done a great job this preparation. She’s picked up great prize money. She’s gone through the grades, and she’ll have a well-deserved break now.
“I think it was a good move, not going to Queensland, looking at the weather right now, the heavy track, and now we put her away and we’ve got a really nice horse for the spring and we can maybe target a race (the Matriarch) that Zayydani won.”
Luke Currie was aboard Madiyya when the filly won over 1400m three weeks ago, also at Caulfield, and said he was happy to sit back, knowing she’d have the stamina to sustain such a run.
“She was a bit better out of the machine today than she was drawing lower the other day,” Currie said.
“The way she raced today had she drawn closer she would have landed closer but we just came back, happy to just stay three wide off a soft tempo and be able to get into the race.”
“Last time she was quite brilliant, today it was more tradesman-like. She probably had enough on the line without being too hard on her.
“So she’s still learning. She still looks like she’ll, with a bit more time, she’s going to furnish. She’s definitely going the right way.”
