By Michael Guerin
Only one of Team Cullen’s triple threat of glamour girls remains but she is not a bad one to have.
Arafura is the last girl standing, racing-wise, out of the three fillies that helped boost trainers Hayden and Amanda Cullen’s profile when they were still setting up on their own a couple of years ago.
While they had some smart boys in the stable they rolled General Jen, Winelight and Oaks winner Arafura out to dominate the fillies and then mares races.
But now only one of them remains in their care and the way Arafura won her comeback at Addington on Friday night she might just be the best of the trio.
Winelight was supposed to be in the same 1980m mares mobile but she was scratched on race morning as she has been sold to the United States where she will join the Tritton barn top race at Yonkers.
General Jen was retired to stud last year and will be ready to foal soon but Arafura is getting warmed up to lay her claim as one of the best pacing mares in the country.
“She has come back great,” says Hayden.
“She is stronger and more well rounded than last time and we think she is in for a good campaign.”
“Her main spring aim will be the Adore Me during NZ Cup week and then if she is still going well she will head north for the Queen of Hearts.”
That could mean running into Captains Mistress, if she even turns up in New Zealand, but Cullen says if that is the case, so be it.
“You never know how long you are going to have these mares for so if she is still racing well we will go up there regardless of who she has to race.”
Cullen says losing mares like Winelight to overseas or General Jen retiring so early is part of the game and he can understand it.
“To be honest we have a few nice races this spring for mares like Arafura but there really aren’t many big money races so selling them or breeding can make sense sometimes.”
Arafura wasn’t the only Cullen winner on the night who looks up to winning richer races this spring as juvenile trotter Eyes Wide Open remained unbeaten at his second start, holding off the more experienced Master McGoogan.
“He is doing a great job, especially with me training him,” joked Cullen about his lack of experience with good trotters in recent years.
“He was actually the only trotter we got to train that year and he is getting better all the time.
“He has the $50,000 Sundon back here in two weeks and then two more weeks to the Harness Million and then the Sires’ Stakes later in the season.”
A man with a bit more experience with trotters is Paul Nairn and he completed a double with Luvavici and Marikit, the latter looking a really smart three-year-old filly when she gave some older mares a start and a beating even after a hard run.
That moved her into one of the favourites for the NZ Trotting Oaks and she is a lovely moving filly, albeit in a deep crop including Petite Armour, who won in an even stronger grade later in the Addington programme.
Franco Ankara was brilliant winning the Woodlands Stud Sires’ Stakes Foundations and is a Derby horse while Blair Orange was on fire on a night with plenty of excellent performances that sets up the spring age group races nicely.