Nashville relished a return to Otaki, and to a smaller field, to win his second Group One Otaki Maori Weight-For-Age Classic.
The talented Darci Brahma gelding hasn’t placed in his last four runs after his usual tardy beginnings.
But back on the course where he beat Veyron and Ocean Park to win the Group One 1600m race in 2013, Nashville bounced back to his best.
Jockey Jonathan Riddell, who replaced Kelly Myers, had Nashville in third place on the fence, slipped through on the inside on the turn as other horses went wide to get a better run, and had too many guns for race favourite Xanadu.
“His last three races were good runs without being there in the finish, and he does have that turn of foot,” Riddell said.
“I was just hoping to cut the corner and get out, and to the horse’s credit he’s done it all on his own.”
Xanadu finished well for second from the rear of the field but had no answer to Nashville, while Final Touch improved on her recent form to take third.
Nashville, who finished well back in the Emirates Classic in Melbourne last spring after having run second in two Group One races in Hastings, is trained in the Central North Island town of Hunterville by Adrian and Harry Bull.
