Melody Belle suffered a rare loss last time out but bounced back in brilliant style to win Saturday’s Bonecrusher Stakes (2000m) at Ellerslie.
Anchored towards the rear, she copped some buffeting around the home turn before coming widest of all and powering home to defeat stablemate Avantage and land her 14th Gr.1 win, surpassing Sunline for the most Group One wins in the modern era for a New Zealand-trained horse.
Melody Belle has now won 19 of her 38 starts and over $NZ4.24m in prizemoney, 18 of her wins at stakes level.
She is one of 12 Gr.1 winners for Commands (Danehill) and one of 79 stakes winners for her sire who died in 2014 after setting an Australasian record of 155 individual winners in the 2010-11 season.
Commands also has Gr.1 winner Appearance out of a Danzig (Northern Dancer) line mare.
Bred by Marie Leicester, Melody Belle is the first foal of Meleka Belle (Iffraaj), a winner in New Zealand and a half-sister to Gr.1 NZ 1000 Guineas third Tsarina Belle (Stravinsky), Gr.2 Ellerslie Queen Elizabeth Stakes third Desert Rain (Honor Grades) and L.R. placed Kiwinsky (Stravinsky) and Housemaster (Housebuster).
The fourth dam Honey Belle (Better Honey) won the George Adams Handicap and Wellington Guineas at Trentham as well as the Ladies Mile and Great Northern Foal Stakes at Ellerslie.
She is a half-sister to 1973 West Australian Derby winner Asgard (Hermes) and the Adelaide and Port Adelaide Guineas winner Chiming (Oncidium).