Group 2 honours for Embellish filly

Gallant Embellish filly Hitabell produced a defiant front-running performance at Ellerslie to win the G2 Eight Carat Classic and credit our young Cambridge Stud sire with the most important success of his career to date.

The Group 1-winning son of Savabeel’s daughter Luberon has triumphed twice at Group 3 level in our colours while Bold Soul has also been a multiple black-type winner for him in Australia.

The Stephen Marsh-trained Hitabell had trekked south to Wanganui at her previous start to claim the Listed O’Leary’s Fillies’ Stakes and went to another level on Boxing Day.

She made all the running under rider Courtney Barnes and answered every call in the run home to prevail in the 1600 metre fillies’ feature.

“It was a very good win and she was just so brave,” she said.

“We wanted to be positive from the barrier and when she jumped so well, she put herself on the pace and we could control things from there.

“I was a little worried when the other one (Sethito) cruised up alongside us, but I could feel her building underneath me and she just wouldn’t give in.

“That is the furthest she has gone but the way she relaxes there is nothing to say she couldn’t get a little further than the mile.”

Hitabell was bred by Henley Park’s Sarah Devcich who remained in the ownership group after the filly was purchased by Dylan Johnson Bloodstock and Marsh for $9,500 at New Zealand Bloodstock’s Online Yearling Sale.

She is a daughter of the late Stravinsky mare Anahita, whose last foal is a juvenile filly also by Embellish, and she was a half-sister to the multiple Group 2 winner and Group 1 placegetter Shikoba.