Winning Return From Maternity Leave for Miss Tivoli NZ
A proud Michael Blakemore and Miss Tivoli NZ after their win on Friday. Photo Credit – Photography by Jodie Hallows
A special mare to Michael Blakemore, there has been plenty of doubt clouding whether she would ever make it back to the track but on Friday night Miss Tivoli NZ denied all odds by winning easily after over two-and-a-half years on the side lines due to injury.
“I still have my heart in my mouth every time I get to the barn.”
“It’s so hard to explain how hard it has been to keep going with her, so many times I should have given up.”
Leading all the way from barrier two in the second on the card, Blakemore drover her positively, with the $7 shot getting away with a conservative first half, she was able to kick away by 8.4m, defeating the short-priced favourite Sport Sport Sport in 2:06:9 over the 2180m journey.
Damaging her tendon at her last start at Gloucester Park in September 2019, the blow came as a final straw for Blakemore who almost threw in the towel and walked away from horses, taking up the position as a track curator, a position he still holds at Pinjarra.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking because she’s my favourite horse ever.”
“I had her tendon treated with that bone marrow cell therapy, then thought well she has to have at least 12 months off doing nothing, so put her in foal to Vincent.”
Miss Tivoli NZ went on to produce a bay filly born on the 22nd of September 2020, by Alabar Stud Farm stallion Vincent and after weaning her at this time last year, Blakemore made the decision to give the mare another shots at making the track.
“She was humungous, so just had to swim her for ages to get some weight off, so there wasn’t going to be so much strain when she went back on the track.”
It has been a treacherous road getting ‘Miley’ back to the races, with the injury prone mare falling at the track and taking out her knee just one day prior to her being due to have the hopples back on, requiring a further month off to recover.
“Just before Christmas she must have bumped her tendon because it blew up again, got her out of working again, then I spent Christmas Eve trying to find a stallion for her this late in the season.”
“Then less than a month later her fetlock blew up and I had to back off her, then just as I got her ready for trials she tied up on me and I couldn’t get her right so ended up having to turn her out for a few weeks and start again.”
Picking her out in the 2016 New Zealand yearling sales, Blakemore grew very attached to the young filly after doing all the early work with her including her break in prep, before making the decision to send her to his good friend Gareth Dixon due to relocating to WA in September 2016.
After three starts in New Zealand, she was brought over to WA where she made a winning debut in the state, with a narrow victory at Northam in October 2018, following up with her second win just 13 days later at her third start for Blakemore. The lightly races seven-year-old has now had 13 starts for 3 wins and 3 seconds.
“Maybe the turning point was when I brought in her yearling daughter to the barn to be broken in and she decided then and there that maybe I will be the racehorse again, rather than a mother.”
“I think with the amount of time and money I’ve spent at West Coast Vets; I always tell them that I own a stake in the clinic now.” He joked.
Blakemore has confirmed that Miss Tivoli NZ has pulled up a treat since her run on Friday night and aims to race her again in a fortnights time at Northam.
Ashleigh Paikos