Cassini Takes Wanganui Feature

The Mark Oulaghan trained Cassini showed a massive turnaround in form on Saturday when winning the Listed Cambridge Thoroughbred Lodge Wanganui Cup (2040m).

Ridden by Lisa Allpress, Cassini (Reset x Mathematical) enjoyed an economical trip three back on the rail and was pushed by Allpress to contest the lead at the 250 metre mark, and in a blanket finish held off a wall of horses to win by half a length.

Cassini had finished no better than twelfth in her previous two starts, the Group 3 Taranaki Breeders' Stakes and Group 2 Coupland's Bakeries Mile, but her winning price of $6.50 showed that she was firmly on the punters radar and she clearly enjoyed the step up in distance to the 2040 metres.

Cassini capped off a good weekend for sire sons of Zabeel, being by the Group 1 winner Reset. Stakes placed as a three-year-old in the Group 2 New Zealand Bloodstock Royal Stakes and the Group 2 City of Auckland Cup last season, the win was her first at black-type level and she is the 15th stakes winner for her sire.

Reset was in the top ten sires in Australia last season for stakes winners with nine and is having a strong spring with his daughter Pinker Pinker winning the Group 1 Cox Plate.

Bred by Doug Dean, Cassini was purchased by Gail Drought from Lyndhurst Farm at New Zealand Bloodstock's 2007 Karaka Premier Sale for $120,000. Now a winner of four of her 36 starts, Cassini has earned over $155,000 in stakes.