STAR'S SISTER A WINNER AT COWRA
- John Curtis
- 31 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The Hawkesbury trainer at the time had won five races (including three in town) with his stable star Everyone’s A Star when he noticed her older sister in blood Kev’s Girl was on the market.
“Because of my mare I had been taking notice of Kev’s Girl, who had been racing in Victoria and South Australia,” Chevalier said today.
“I rang her trainer in Victoria and he told me her form had dropped off a bit, but that she was sound, so I decided to buy her.
“Kev’s Girl had won five races, and was a city winner at Moonee Valley in December 2021.
“I felt she had some value as a broodmare when her racing career was over, and was worth a gamble.
“She is a good style of mare, and very strong.”
It has taken longer than Chevalier would have hoped, but he finally got a win on the board with the now eight-year-old mare at Cowra yesterday.
Ridden by apprentice Claire Ramsbotham, Kev’s Girl ($4.40) made short work of her outside barrier in the Reg and Rose Paine Memorial Benchmark 58 Handicap (950m).
She quickly took up the running and comfortably defeated $4.20 favorite Bolo Miss and Desirous ($6) to post her first success since October 2023.
“Apart from getting our first win with Kev’s Girl, the pleasing part was that Claire (Ramsbotham) was able to get her to settle, and she was strong to the line,” Chevalier said.
“A lot of work has gone into getting her to settle.
“That was Claire’s first ride for me, but I knew her when she was riding work at Hawkesbury.
“There is a nice program of 900m races coming up at Newcastle for Kev’s Girl, and hopefully I can get Claire to come from her Canberra base to continue riding the mare.”
Ironically, Chevalier didn’t initially have the Cowra race on Kev’s Girl’s radar.
“I was going to trial her at home today (the session has been put back until tomorrow), but we have had a lot of rain at Hawkesbury and she doesn’t like wet tracks,” he explained.
“When I saw it was dry at Cowra, I decided we may as well go there.”
Chevalier burst back into the winning list when Everyone’s A Star trounced her rivals at Royal Randwick on January 3 in a Midway Benchmark 72 Handicap (1200m).
And he is heading back there with his “star” on Saturday for a Benchmark 78 Handicap (1200m) against her own sex.
Tyler Schiller, who has partnered Everyone’s A Star in all of her four city victories, continues a successful association with her.
HOOFNOTE: Everyone’s A Star is by Star Turn, whose sire Star Witness is the father of Kev’s Girl. Both mares’ dam Pietra (by Rock Of Gibraltar) has been retired from breeding.
