Chantilly Lace chases Hawera breakthrough
Richard Edmunds • July 11th, 2025 4:04 PM • 3 min read
Chantilly Lace will attempt to cap a series of eye-catching efforts with a return to the winners’ circle in the Scott Roberts @ Metcalfe Real Estate Handicap (1600m) at Hawera on Saturday.
The stakes-performed U S Navy Flag mare has gone winless in 10 starts since taking out a 1600m Rating 75 at Wanganui at the end of November, but her recent performances have been full of merit. She has produced strong finishes for fourth in the Listed AGC Training Stakes (1600m) at Wanganui on May 31, fifth in the Listed Tauranga Classic (1400m) on June 21 and a last-start second in the Whyte Handicap (1600m) at Trentham.
Chantilly Lace’s Tauranga Classic performance was particularly notable. She was a long last and detached from the field for most of the race, some 10 lengths adrift of the second-last horse coming down the side of the track. But she roared home in the fastest last 800m, 600m, 400m and 200m of the race, closing to within five lengths of the winner Cork.
“She’s come into some really good form this winter,” trainer and part-owner Chrissy Bambry said. “She’s got that touch of class about her and handles most tracks, which holds her in good stead at this time of the year.
“It was an extremely heavy track at Trentham last time, which took a lot out of most of the horses who raced on it, but I’ve been really pleased with how she bounced through that run. She’s bright and well and her work has been very good.”
Bruno Quieroz rode Chantilly Lace in the Whyte Handicap and retains the mount for Saturday, where the TAB rates the pair $3.40 favourites. (Click here for the full race market)
“It looks like quite a nice race for her on Saturday, although there are some others in the field with strong wet-track form,” Bambry said. “The one concern would be the track getting completely bottomless. Bruno told me last time that he thought the Trentham track might have been at the limit of what she could handle.”
Bambry is not ruling out a Group Three mission in Christchurch at the beginning of next month with Chantilly Lace but is mindful that the rising five-year-old has already built up a strong CV for her future broodmare career. She won the Listed Castletown Stakes (1200m) as a two-year-old and Listed Wanganui Guineas (1200m) as a three-year-old, and she has subsequently collected black-type placings in the Gr.3 Gold Trail Stakes (1200m), Gr.3 Wellington Stakes (1600m) and Listed Oaks Prelude (1800m).
“If she was super impressive this weekend, maybe we could think about the Winter Cup (1600m),” Bambry said. “But she already has some good black type to her name. The main thing we’ll want to do is give her a nice spring campaign along with hopefully getting her in foal.”
Bambry’s other runners on Saturday are Ensign Aria in the Simon Bendall @ Metcalfe Real Estate 2YO (1200m) and The Finnster in the Steely Steely Make Me Squealy (2100m).
“Ensign Aria missed the start badly in the Castletown Stakes last time and it was game over from there,” Bambry said. “I’ve been really happy with her progress since then and I just hope she jumps a bit more cleanly this week.
“The Finnster has a good record at Hawera. Being an older horse now, he’s just taken a bit longer to build up his fitness this time in, but he’s trained on very nicely from his last run. We’ll try blinkers this week and hope that sparks him up a bit.”
