O'Malley's Boy Takes Foxbridge Plate

Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00

The Foxbridge Plate has been won by some top gallopers over the last 50 years, but it would be difficult to find one to compare on the score of durability and honesty with the race’s 2002 winner, O’Malleys Boy (NZ) (Dance Floor).

They don’t come much smaller than the little bay who last Saturday registered his third black-type success and eleventh career win in the Westbury Stud-sponsored $27,500 Listed event.

In December 2000 O’Malleys Boy scored his most notable success, in the Gr.2 Concorde at Avondale, while the same season he was denied Gr.1 glory in the Railway Stakes and Easter Handicap by the photo finish camera.

Try as he might, he had been unable to regain the winner’s stall in an extensive programme since the Concorde. Seven consecutive minor placings in handicap company had preceded Saturday’s win and nobody begrudged the breakthrough, ironically under 58.5kg in the weight-for-age contest.

O’Malleys Boy was purchased on the advice of Matamata bloodstock consultant Paul Moroney by his owners Danny and Judy Moss and Ken Syminton for $26,000 from the 1996 National Yearling Sales.

After his great run of form in the summer of 2000-01, they returned to Karaka where they purchased his Kingdom Bay (NZ) (Otehi Bay) half-sister for $60,000.

Now named O’Malleys Girl, she was a trials placegetter as a two-year-old last season. The pair were offered by their Hunterville breeder Charles Grace, as progeny of the In the Purple mare Out Clear.

Media Release - NZTM