WHEN it comes to strike rates, Angela Davies takes some beating!
The Gosford mentor doesn’t have big numbers, but sure knows how to train a winner.
Davies opened the season by scoring with her only runner at Newcastle on Thursday - and remarkably it was her fifth success from her last six starters.
Denman Star ($8.50) was bumped by another runner on jumping in the CG&E Benchmark 64 Handicap (1250m) and settled third last, was second last on the home turn and then whizzed down the centre of the track to easily defeat Unwritten ($9.50) and Carpaccio ($2.90 favorite).
That made it two wins from as many starts at Newcastle for Davies since the gelding joined her team after previously being trained by Ciaron Maher.
Denman Star landed a Midway Class 1 Handicap (1200m) on July 16 for Andrew Gibbons (Davies’ most successful jockey with 42 victories), but 3kg claimer Mitch Stapleford was called up this time to lessen the four-year-old’s 60.5kg.
Capri Racing’s Vince Ferraro secured Denman Star for $30,000 as a 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast yearling, and he has now won three races (the first was over 1400m at Goulburn in July last year).
Runner-up Unwritten was a $210,000 yearling in 2020, and Carpaccio fetched $380,000 at the Gold Coast two years ago.
Denman Star’s success edged Davies closer to a career 200 (this was her 194th), but the real story is her strike rate.
The last four seasons have been 32.1 per cent (2020-21), 20.4 % (2021-22), 21.4 % (2022-23) and 25.9 % in the season just concluded, giving her an average strike rate of a tick under 25 per cent (e.g one winner every four starters).
Davies won four races in a row toward the end of last season; Miss Cartel at Taree on June 25, Ain’t She Swell (Tamworth, June 28), Miss Cartel (Muswellbrook, July 11), and Denman Star (Newcastle, July 16).
Davies will seek to further improve her strike rate when she resumes the talented Our Kobison at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
James McDonald will ride the five-year-old, who has won five of his nine starts, in the Benchmark 88 Handicap (1000m).
. Local trainers Kris Lees and Nathan Doyle were the other provincial winners at the Newcastle meeting.
Lees took the Maiden Plate (1850m) with Lost Illusions ($2.60), and Doyle won the Provincial Benchmark 68 Handicap (1400m) with Mondo ($5 co-favorite).
Lees’ apprentice Ben Osmond rode Lost Illusions, and last season’s State premiership winner Ash Morgan had the mount on Mondo.
Story John Curtis, August 9, 2024 - Pics Bradley Photos
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