Despite racing well out of her grade, progressive mare Santa Monica (Per Incanto-Monarch by Volksraad) was too good for her R85 rivals over 1200m at Ruakaka on Saturday, her third career success and second in a row.
The farm’s midweek racing focus was on Kembla Grange, just out of Sydney, where the LA bred and part owned Bella Amante (Pins-Bellabaci by Zabeel) was looking to show that her unplaced last start performance was down to a very wet track and a mare in season not reflective of the promise she’d shown winning twice from three career starts. Well ridden by in-form Sydney jockey Tim Clark, the Joseph Ible trained four-year-old mare duly obliged to win comfortably over 1600m.