Kentucky creates more than a breeze

Kentucky Breeze rewarded connections with their patience with a tough win in the $60,000 Suez McKellar Mile (1600m) at Saturday’s metropolitan Ballarat meeting. Trained by Kavanagh Racing’s Levi Kavanagh and ridden by apprentice Ethan Brown, Kentucky Breeze notched together his third career victory from ten career starts, making upwards of $150,000 in career earnings.

A son of sire sensation Pierro, Kentucky Breeze settled mid-field and wide from the draw and let down strongly over the final 200m to win narrowly. “He drew wide, but he prefers to have room. Even though he travelled deep I was always confident he would be in the finish”.

Kavanagh also accepted for a benchmark race at Rosehill today and the victory confirms staying home was the right call “When the fields come out and I saw he drew inside in Sydney and with the predicted rain in Victoria the decision was a no brainer, His last run was on Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington he really appreciated getting his toe in, the track downgrade was an added bonus”, said Kavanagh.

Kentucky Breeze provided Kavanagh with his biggest career success in his short training career, winning at Listed level at his second race start over last years Flemington Carnival “That was his last win (Stakes Day 2017) and I have had a few little niggling issues with him since. I always knew I had a handy horse on my hands as not too many go from a Stawell maiden to winning over the Carnival at their second start, so I have spent plenty of time trying to get him right. He is as good as I have had him, so it was encouraging to see him win today”.

Kentucky Breeze is owned by Barry and Maree Vandenbergh, Dr John Ford, Go Wild 2 Syn (managed by Darren Auld), Il Campione, Greg & Marg James, Blair Lehmann, Angelo Matthews, Road To Nowhere Syn, Mark Rogan, Tom Wilkinson, Brett Oliver and Cara Kavanagh.

Kavanagh boasts an impressive 20% strike rate (winners to runners) demonstrating how well placed his team are. “It’s taken a while for me to build my team up but I’m really happy with the current stable. I have some exciting young horses coming through and loyal owners who have supported me.”

When asked where Kentucky Breeze is going next “I’m still getting over this win. I will see how he comes through today, have a chat with the owners and go through the program. I just wrapped to have him back winning,” said Kavanagh.