Personal gave Coolmore some much needed good luck after a devastating past few weeks in Australia with victory in Thursday’s $1 million VRC Oaks at Flemington.
Having lost Wichita to a hind-leg fracture, the forced retirement of Magic Wand and then Tuesday’s tragic loss of The Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck, the global racing and breeding operation was in need of a change of fortune and Personal went some way towards assuaging the pain with a maiden stakes victory in the fillies classic.
Settled away from a hot pace in the early stages, Damien Oliver eased Personal out wide around the home turn and then the Fastnet Rock filly finished determinedly to overhaul Salto Angel (Sacred Falls) and the odds-on favourite Montefilia (Kermadec) inside the final 200m and win going away by 1-1/4 lengths. (pic: Racing Photos/Natasha Morello)
Apart from the filly, it also the first Group 1 win for Lindsay Park since the departure of David Hayes to Hong Kong with cousins Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes in charge of the Flemington and Euroa operations.
Oliver was winning the classic for sixth time and has been a consistent partner of Personal this spring and praised the filly’s courage.
“It was a good tough effort. It was a real slog, the last four or five hundred metres with the second and third horses,” Oliver said.
“The second and third horses seemed to have my measure early in the straight, but she outstayed them in the end. She was really tough.”