\n\t\t\t\t\tBy Trevor Marshallsea\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Listen<\/p>\n
High\u2013priced filly Esha (Extreme Choice) looked a stakes winner in waiting by leading throughout to power to victory over a smart field of new three-year-olds at The Valley on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Resuming from a debut 3.4-length romp at Morphettville in May, the Shane Nichols-trained daughter of Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) bounded to the front from gate four under Damian Lane in the 1000-metre handicap, and after absorbing some early pressure from stakes-placed colt Bacash (Cosmic Force), powered away in the straight to score by 3.5 lengths.<\/p>\n
Starting a $2.15 favourite, Esha beat Team Yargi\u2019s $41 shot Petite Artiste (Earthlight) into second, with Ciaron Maher\u2019s Oyster Lane (Blue Point) another 0.3 lengths adrift in third at $4.40.<\/p>\n
A $900,000 Gold Coast purchase for Nichols and Kia Ora Stud\u2014which now races her in tandem with Matthew Sandblom\u2019s Hollymount Stud\u2014Esha is the third foal out of I Am A Star (I Am Invincible), who won nine stakes races for Nichols, all at Group level and headed by the 2016 Myer Classic (Gr 1, 1600m).<\/p>\n
Mornington-based Nichols previously paid $800,000 for I Am A Star\u2019s first foal Orion The Hunter (Deep Field), who won five restricted races before a transfer to Darwin.<\/p>\n
The outstanding mare\u2019s second foal I Am A Rockstar (Fastnet Rock) was a $400,000 buy for Waterhouse-Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds, but has ended up in Canberra as a seven-start maiden.<\/p>\n
Nichols and company appear to have profited far better through I Am A Star\u2019s union with Newgate Farm\u2019s Extreme Choice, with Esha now having twice taken on the males and given them a sound beating.<\/p>\n
A delighted Nichols said the filly would now target black type races in the spring. The first of those might involve a trip to Sydney for Randwick\u2019s Silver Shadow Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) on August 23, with Nichols eager to give his potential star as broad a range of experiences as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long spring ahead,\u201d Nichols told Racing.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of opportunities for a three-year-old filly who\u2019s sharp. I\u2019m mindful of the fact that if we do win a fillies\u2019 stakes race we get penalties; we might have to race against the boys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d also like to have a look at the [Flemington] straight. There\u2019s a whole lot of things I\u2019d like to cram into a period. Getting it right is the tricky bit but I think we\u2019ve got the ingredients of a very nice filly going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nichols\u2019 desire for Flemington straight experience is an obvious pointer towards the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) on Derby Day. Following Saturday\u2019s victory, bookmakers wound Esha into the fourth line of betting at $11 for that race.<\/p>\n
Esha was also made an $8 equal-fourth favourite for the Moir Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) at Moonee Valley on September 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll go stakes racing now. Potentially she could go to the Silver Shadow in Sydney in two weeks,\u201d said Nichols, delighted with Esha\u2019s first look at The Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Bacash was niggling up outside her just to stay in touch early, I thought we were in a pretty good position.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was able to come back underneath him and then quickened up like we\u2019ve seen in her trials, and like we saw in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen [races] are short, you want them to do what they\u2019re supposed to, and she did what she was supposed to do. It was a nice gallop and hopefully we\u2019re setting up for a nice spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nichols\u2019 ebullience was echoed by Lane, who said he was keen to stick with Esha for the spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great. She was very professional, she knows her job very well,\u201d the winning rider said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe left the gates sharp, and was able to control the race from the outset. She never really felt like losing, so a really promising return.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to nurse her through the middle stages, which was great. By the sounds, she\u2019s not going to be a one-trick pony\u2014she settles lovely in her work. That\u2019ll hold her in good stead going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s pretty forward. She\u2019s up and going at the right time. The early part of he spring might be a really good time for her to see some nice races.\u201d<\/p>\n
Esha\u2019s full sister sold to Anthony Cummings Thoroughbreds, also from the Newgate draft, at Magic Millions Gold Coast this year for $400,000.<\/p>\n
I Am A Star had two more successful covers from Extreme Choice after bearing Esha, and now has two-year-old and yearling full sisters to the filly. The mare was covered for a fourth straight time by Extreme Choice last spring, but missed.<\/p>\n
Extreme Choice is off to a flyer this season, with five winners from 11 runners. He has 90 winners from 134 runners worldwide at 67 per cent, and 14 stakes winners at 10.4 per cent. He is standing at Newgate for a fee of $330,000 (inc GST), up from $275,000 in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Trevor Marshallsea Listen High\u2013priced filly Esha (Extreme Choice) looked a stakes winner in waiting by leading throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-56954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}