For the second time in a week, a Bullbars three-year old filly trounced her rivals in impressive fashion.
Following on from the Allan Sharrock trained Mars Bars winning at Taranaki, Akoya was probably even more impressive at Taupo yesterday.
Sent out a hot favourite in the maiden 1,000m race, Akoya jumped straight to the lead and coming around the turn, eased a couple of lengths clear. Nothing in the race could bridge the gap and in fact, she was four lengths clear at the line without being fully extended; clocking sub 34 seconds for the last 600m. Danielle Johnson celebrated her 50th victory of the season on Akoya.
Trained by Stephen Marsh at Cambridge, Akoya has always shown a significant amount of speed; she won her first trial as a spring two-year-old by eight lengths! She is raced by her breeder Mrs J Egan. Akoya is the second foal out of the unraced Pentire mare, Penny Bright.
She clearly has an exciting future ahead of herself, and it will be interesting to see where she is placed to run next.
It has been a great couple of weeks for Bullbars' fillies. Aside from the convincing victories of Mars Bars and Akoya, Lady Bullbars ran an encouraging third on her Australian debut for the Busuttin/Young training combination, and Comin'through was a close up fourth over a mile at Ellerslie.
