Champion Stallion High Chaparral has another outstanding prospect on his hands in the form of New Zealand mare Soubrettes whom demolished her opposition by a widening 3.5 Length margin in the Group 3 Lindauer Stewards Handicap Wednesday.
Worldly-wise jockey David Walsh has ridden some outstanding thoroughbreds during his lengthy career so when he rates one as "very special” it carries particular significance.
"She's showed plenty of talent from the word go and she clearly appreciates the six furlongs at Riccarton,” Walsh said. "Whatever she runs in she is going to be very hard to beat.”
The Matt and Mandy Brown-trained High Chaparral mare came four wide on the turn and one crack with the whip from Walsh 200 metres from home was enough to see her explode clear.
"I got a beautiful run to the 650 and then there was a bit of buffeting and I got pushed out,” he said.
"She ranged up and that was it – she was gawking around the last 100 metres.”
Soubrettes, who has been nominated for the Gr.1 Telegraph Handicap at Trentham, was in a class of her own at the finish and has now won four of her five starts.
"That was better than we could have hoped for,” Matt Brown said. "She hasn't been an easy filly to handle, but she's really coming to it now.”
"She's been an eccentric mare to train and certainly hasn't been easy,” Mandy Brown said. "She has kept improving, although some days you hold your breath with her as she's quite quirky.”
Soubrettes became the 61st stakes-winner worldwide for Epsom Derby hero and Champion Stallion High Chaparral.
