Caitlyn Keeping's Million Dollar Mission

CHARMAINE Roberts and Shayne Stiff quickly shifted focus to the Ladbrokes Million Dollar Chase after celebrating their first Group training success when Caitlyn Keeping came off the reserve's bench to win the Group 2 Sires On Ice Black Top at Ladbrokes Gardens last Friday night.

Successful Dubbo-based owner/breeders Roberts and Stiff have enjoyed plenty of feature race success with their ‘Keeping' breed in the last two years, winning the Group 1 Association Cup earlier this year with Simon Keeping as well as the 2016 Group 2 WA Oaks with Milly Keeping and last year's Group 3 Summer Cup with Scott Keeping.

"We'll never get sick of winning good races," Shayne Stiff told The Recorder.

"Especially when they're home-bred and home-reared. We had Caitlyn Keeping's mother (Naomi Keeping), grandmother (Only Keeping) and great grandmother (Intelligent). Intelligent was Charmaine's original bitch after her father bought her off Peg and Bill Miller.

"This is the first Group winner we've trained ourselves. We also won the Lismore Maiden (worth $20,000 to-the-winner) last December with Caitlyn Keeping's litter sister, Madeline Keeping.

"The last couple of years have been good to us, although you still get your slow ones. We've found that the harder we work, the luckier we get. Charmaine is a freak; she never stops, but it's not just about us. We couldn't do it without Fiona, Angela and Buster (Harrison)."

Caitlyn Keeping, a June '16 daughter of Fabregas and Naomi Keeping, came into the Black Top series in white-hot form, having won her previous five starts at Dubbo, Bathurst and Maitland, including four best of meeting performances.

At her first visit to The Gardens, Caitlyn Keeping made the running in her Black Top heat when edged out by Zipping Tayla, beaten a nose in a fast 29.39.

Initially first reserve for the $40,000 to-the-winner final, Caitlyn Keeping was elevated into the field by the scratching of Black Forge and she was a well-supported $5.20 chance from box eight, with her heat conqueror Zipping Tayla the $2.70 favourite from box one.

Caitlyn Keeping crossed Zipping Tayla to lead on the first turn and this time she refused to surrender the lead, reversing the result from seven nights earlier as she staved off a late challenge from Zipping Tayla to score by half a length in 29.35, her tenth win from 19 starts, also finishing runner-up on six occasions.

"Full credit to the little bitch. She's not the fastest bitch in the world but she's just kept improving with every start over the last six weeks," Stiff offered.

"It was a bit of a last minute decision to put her in the Black Top and she'd never been to The Gardens before the heats. But her last couple of wins at Dubbo were just so good and her Bathurst runs were good too and we couldn't find a race for her so Charmaine said what about throwing her in the Black Top?

"Darren Sultana rang us on the Monday to give us the heads-up that Black Forge was injured and would probably be scratched. It was a very good gesture from Darren because it's hard to know what to do when you're a reserve. Do you trial or do you go somewhere else. We had the same situation last year when we were a reserve for a Group 1 or 2 at The Meadows.

"She was only beaten a nose in her heat and we were hoping she could find a length with the look at the track. Charmaine, who handles the dogs, said that she really does want box eight and when I looked at the form the seven (Hello Robbo) crashes and the six (Set To Storm) is hit and miss.

"Zipping Tayla was always going to be hard to beat. Beating Jason Mackay at The Gardens is like beating Charmaine Roberts at Dubbo! The dogs know every grain of sand.

"We've always had a big opinion of her. After she won her maiden at Richmond in 22.73 we sent her down to Melbourne for the (Group 2) Launching Pad. We really threw her to the wolves because she was only 18 months old at the time. She won first-up at Sandown but she was just too young."

Caitlyn Keeping backed-up at Bathurst on Monday in the opening round of the Million Dollar Chase and romped to her seventh win from her last eight starts in the second of four heats with a dominant all-the-way 29.94 victory.

Two other Group-winning females won heats at Bathurst, with Miss Splendamiro (Ladies Bracelet) running 29.68 and recent NSW National Sprint representative Sky Wave (Nowra Puppy Classic) clocking 29.86, while Modus Operandi posted 30.10.

"The Million Dollar Chase is the shot in the arm the industry needs, Australia-wide," Stiff said.

"We needed a boost and this is it. The first five days of publicity after the series was announced was worth a million dollars to the industry. You've got to reward the best and work your way down from there – look at the Everest, Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate with the thoroughbreds."