8th G1 win for Wylie Hall relative
Cheveley Stud’s promising young sire Wylie Hall hails from the same family as recently crowned New Zealand Horse of The Year Melody Belle.
The latter, also crowned New Zealand’s Champion Sprinter-Miler last season, made it G1 win number eight when Melody Belle sauntered home to win Saturday’s G1 Windsor Park Plate for a second year in a row.
The Jamie Richards-trained five-year-old repeated her deeds of last season when she took out Saturday’s feature event after capturing the Gr.1 Tarzino Trophy on the first day of the Bostock New Zealand Spring Carnival for the second year in a row.
No horse has ever completed the Hawke’s Bay Triple Crown with a subsequent win in the Gr.1 Livamol Classic (2040m) on the last day of the carnival with Melody Belle’s connections now focussed on having their champion mare become the first to achieve the feat.
A perfect ride from Opie Bosson set the platform for the performance as he guided Melody Belle into a perfect one out position in behind the early speed before unleashing her at the top of the straight.
Bosson unleashed the brakes at the 300m and the mare bolted clear, easing down to win untouched by three lengths form a game Sultan Of Swing.
Bosson was in awe of the Commands mare as he described the ease of the victory.
WYLIE HALL (AUS)
“She’s just amazing, right from when she was a two-year-old and on to now,” he said. It’s been an amazing job by Jamie and the whole team at Te Akau, for what they have done, and for her to keep winning the way she has. She’s just got that will to win and doesn’t know when to say never. Every time she goes out, she gives you 110 percent and if she does go a bad race there is obviously something wrong.”
Melody Belle has now won thirteen of her 23 starts, eight Group One’s and over $1,867m in prizemoney.
Not only are Wylie Hall and Melody Belle both descended from the Summertime daughter Belle Time, but both were sired by a son of Danehill, with Wylie Hall a son of the outstanding Redoute’s Choice, and Melody Belle a daughter of Commands.
Wylie Hall, who won both the G1 President’s Champions Challenge and G1 SA Derby during a career which saw the bay earn more than R3.6 million in stakes, has made a bright start to his stud career with his early winners including exported G3 Protea Stakes winner Twilight Moon and recent scorers Flatware and Wylie’s Flame.
– Cape Breeders Club