Bendigo is regarded as the ‘Nursery of Champions’ and Mark Walker is hopeful I Am Aria can add her name to a list of ‘Black Type’ winners that secured their maiden wins at the track.
Horses the calibre of Hyperno, Better Loosen Up, Shocking, Campaign King, Star Of The Realm, Miami Bound and Hollow Bullet all had early wins at course about 150kms from Melbourne.
I Am Aria may be the latest one to add her name to a famous list following her win in the Sandhurst Stockfeeds Maiden Plate (1000m) on Wednesday.
Sent out the $1.65 favourite under Michael Dee, I Am Aria registered a 1-½ length win from Novamira ($4.40) with Silent Devotion ($21) a length away third.
I Am Aria showed promise in her first campaign, registering placings in the Blue Diamond Prelude and Blue Preview before it all came unstuck when the filly burst through the front of the barriers in the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield in February.
Sent for a spell following that episode, I Am Aria was having her first start since and while not relishing the wet conditions, was too strong for her opponents.
“It’s always a relief to kick off the three-year-old season like that,” trainer Mark Walker told racing.com
“She’s got Black Type already, but it would be good to win a Black Type race. She’s got a beautiful pedigree, so it’s onwards and upwards.”
Walker said typically the stock of sire I Am Invincible getter better with age and he is hoping that is the case with I Am Aria.
“We put her aside after she had that hiccup in the Blue Diamond and she had a lovely spell,” Walker said.
“(Assistant-trainer) Ben (Gleeson) and I have seen the development in her in the way she had been working, and she seems a more mature filly.
“Hopefully, she can go a very good level, with a bit of luck.”
Walker said the Group 3 Cap D’antibes Stakes (1100m) at Flemington on September 12 was the contest he had picked out for the filly’s next potential assignment.
Dee rode I Am Aria in the first of her three starts and said the filly was bigger and stronger following her break.
“She’s definitely made progress,” Dee said.
“She still has her winter coat on her but is getting better day by day and what she showed me today, there’s plenty more to come from her.”
