26 Janurary 2010

One of the nicest yearlings we took to the Melbourne Premier Sale last year was a handsome chestnut colt by Elvstroem out of Innocent Baby.

Today at Caulfield the colt, now named Innocent Gamble, made a slashing debut to land the Blue Diamond Preview (Listed) on debut and stake his claim for the big Group 1 contest in March.

Trained by Mark Riley, who shares in the breeding of Innocent Gamble with Geoff and Michael Eastmuire and Dan Mielicki, Innocent Gamble was smartly away and raced in second place to the turn before asserting in the run home, despite racing greenly, to score convincingly.

Riley had made no secret of his admiration for the colt beforehand and afterwards he said, "This is the best horse I have had - and there's plenty of improvement to come."

High praise from the man that has prepared Group 1 winners previously.

Blue Gum Farm will consign the brother to Innocent Gamble and Viking Legend to to Melbourne Premier Sale as Lot 183.

He is a quality individual and we welcome inspection of him and any of our draft of 22 in the Premier Sale at any time, feel free to contact Darryl Sherer on 0417 662 178 to arrange a visit.

Elvstroem had a winning double on Tuesday to go with his double at the weekend and we have some truly lovely yearlings to offer in March.

Elvstroem's offspring are really beginning to run. In fact, his strike-rate of stakeswinners to runners is a very high 4.1 per cent and he is the leading second-crop sire in Victoria by a considerable margin.