Rising Star lives up to her name with Tauranga upset

[Wandering Eyes]

Owner-trainers Tim and Margaret Carter appear to have chosen an appropriate name for a filly they bought for just $700 on Gavelhouse.com.

The Carters called their Complacent filly Rising Star (NZ) (Complacent), and on Saturday she collected the second win of her short career in the Laser Plumbing Waihi Beach 3YO (1400m) at Tauranga.

Rising Star headed into the $40,000 race on an upward trajectory, having opened her winning account in a 1200m maiden at the same venue two weeks ago. Despite that last-start winning form, she was only the fifth favourite at $9 in a market dominated by Avantaggia ($2.90), Happy Youmzain ($3.40) and Yamato Satona ($5.30).

But Rising Star overshadowed her higher-rated opponents with a powerful finish from second-last in the hands of jockey Darren Danis.

Early in the run home, the race appeared to be following the betting market as Avantaggia took command with Yamato Satona and Happy Youmzain warming into their work and gaining ground.

But then Rising Star let rip down the outside of the track, bounding past those rivals with ease and going clear to win by a length and a quarter.

Rising Star was bred by the Mapperley Stud Partnership and is a daughter of the Star Way mare Shining Light, who won three races and placed in the Gr.2 Hawke’s Bay Cup (2200m), Gr.3 Cuddle Stakes (1600m), Gr.3 Rotorua Cup (2200m), Listed Warstep Stakes (2000m) and Listed Manawatu Breeders’ Stakes (2000m).

Shining Light is the dam of four winners, while her unraced daughter Highlights produced the Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m) runner Vassilator.

Rising Star’s own five-start career has now produced two wins, a placing and $36,410 in stakes – more than 50 times the amount the Carters paid to purchase her from Gavelhouse.com.

Tim Carter credited a friend of his, former King Country rugby representative Grant Lethborg, for the decision to buy Rising Star as a weanling in April 2023.

“Grant is really into pedigrees and he told us about this filly that he’d come across on Gavelhouse,” he said. “He thought she had a really interesting pedigree and recommended that we take a look at her. We didn’t have to pay much for her and it’s worked out well so far.

“We’ve had a good opinion of her from the outset, but she had a bit of shin soreness in the early stages of her career and perhaps wasn’t ridden quite how we would have liked in her first couple of starts. Then in her third start she was badly blocked and never got a run at them.

“She’s put together two quite impressive wins now. It was great to see her do that today against a talented three-year-old field.”

The Carters will now look to raise the bar with Rising Star, with the Gr.2 Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Classic (1600m) at Ellerslie on Boxing Day looming as a potential target.

“We deliberately decided to keep her close to home in this campaign,” Tim Carter said. “We’ve got some nice three-year-old fillies’ races coming up in the north now that we can look at, up around the mile. If everything goes well, we could potentially point her towards the New Zealand Oaks (Gr.1, 2400m) a bit later on. She does look like an Oaks type of filly.”

The TAB now rates Rising Star a $15 chance for the Oaks, which will this season be run at Ellerslie on February 21.

That market is headed by Well Written ($5), Belle Cheval ($9), Lollapalooza ($9) and Tajana ($11).

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