A hat trick for the royal chestnut
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Ron Macrae and Scott Galloway enjoy their third straight win with Regal Castanea (Noel Pascoe photo)
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Regal Castanea claimed the Craiglea Stud Class 6 Handicap 1615m at City Pacific Doomben on Saturday, September 27 making it three in a row for the inform gelding.
Since returning to the track in early July, Regal Castanea (G4 Sequalo-Sera) has always been in the prizemoney and has also picked up four metropolitan wins.
Ever a consistent horse, he was never far from the prizemoney in his previous preparations but the latest form has proved a treat for connections bringing his total earnings to $201,300, many returns on his $25,000 purchase price.
He’s come from a classy school with his previous placings being behind the likes of Borsha’s Mark, Heart of the Citi, Charming Rogue as well as a second at Magic Millions behind Amex Gold.
Heading in as $3.70 race favourite, Regal Castanea began well but dropped back and sat on the rail. Regular jockey Scott Galloway slowly moved the gelding up the field and after the home turn, took the run on the inside to bolt up and seize the win and a class record.
“I’ve had a lot of rides on the horse and he’s always shown a lot of promise,” said Galloway.
“I made up that much ground easily on the fence, save like five lengths so I knew I still had a lot of horse left under me. I knew the horse on the inside would drop off so it just gave me enough room to squeeze through the inside. Once I knew I got through there and balanced him up he was always going to be hard to hold out.”
Punch Up (Jason Taylor) placed second by a length closely followed by $31 roughie Crowning Force (Michael Dorrington) a half head behind.
Toowoomba trainer Ron Macrae said the race “absolutely” ran to plan. “They went nice and hard in front and he travelled nicely in the run. He didn’t pull too hard this time which he normally does a little bit,” he said.
“It was a nice authoritative win I thought.”
“He surprised me actually. He’s sort of stepping up and handling the weight okay and I was very pleased to see the way he handled the 1600m too.”
Regal Castanea’s previous two wins were at Eagle Farm over 1400m, one a week earlier and the other another fortnight before that.
“I had backed him up in five days once before and he won and so we were pretty confident about that,” said Macrae.
“The worry was of course stepping up to the 1600m for the first time plus the 58kilos but he handled it pretty well I thought.”
Galloway was also impressed with the gelding’s form. “It was his first preparation last time and he ran a lot of good horses. This time he’s been well placed by Ron and the horse has improved out of sight,” he said.
“I think you haven’t seen the last of this horse yet and I really think he can win a good race.”
Macrae discussed his future plans for Regal Castanea. “We’ll give him one more start and then put him away for a little while,” he said.
“Not for long, we’ll probably give him three or four weeks off and then we may head to the Brisbane Handicap and the Bernborough and Recognition Stakes. That’s just something we may look at or maybe Magic Millions. I think the 1400m Cup on Magic Millions day. We may just target that.”
“Scotty’s very happy with him. He thinks there a good race in him somewhere along the line. He’s stepping up all the time and the horse is just sort of learning to race properly now. So who knows where he may end up.”
QUEENSLAND Racing web news: Hollie Roberts – September 29
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