Regal Saint chasing royal performance at Capalaba

By Josh Spasaro

Despite a promising start to his chasing career, Greg Stella gave a humble assessment of where Regal Saint is at after six starts.

The two-year-old is one to look out for in the first Jeffery Jones Celebration Of Life Trophy heat at Capalaba on Sunday.

He has been a convincing winner of his past three races, but Stella kept a lid on expectations for his developing fawn dog at this early stage of his career. 

“He’s been going well enough. He’s had a couple of runs up there (Capalaba) as a younger dog,” the trainer said.

“He hasn’t had a lot of starts and he’s gone reasonable. He has improved a little bit since then.

“If he gets a good start, he’ll be competitive. But we haven’t got any great hopes for him, to be honest.”

Regal Saint is out of Stella’s bitch, Regal Opal (pictured above), who won on 16 occasions from 40 starts.

She picked up $42,700 in prizemoney, and the Park Ridge conditioner believes he has still got a little while to go if he is to be as good as she was.

“We raced the mother and she had very good speed, and she was a city winner,” Stella said.

“We got five pups out of her. We bred the litter. They’ll all win races, but at this stage they’re nowhere near their mother’s ability.

“The mother had good early speed. She was a city-class winner. She won at Albion Park.

“At this stage the litter haven’t shown that, even though they’re going OK and they’ll win races.

“But we’ll just see if they improve with maturity and as they get older.”

Regal Saint’s past three consecutive victories have been impressive in different ways.

Racing for the first time on a turn track and after a three-month spell, he was a convincing two-and-a-quarter length winner at Q1 over 390 metres last start on Tuesday.

Regal Saint won by three-and-three-quarter lengths from the eight box at Q Straight on October 30.

And a week earlier at the same venue, he showed excellent composure to salute by three lengths after New Day jumped across him from the one box.

But again, Stella did not want to get too far ahead of himself when discussing his young dog’s chances on Sunday.

In a six-dog heat, he drew box four with a vacant lane on his inside.

“Generally at Capalaba in his early runs he’s probably suited centre to wide,” the experienced conditioner said.

“So he’s drawn OK. He hasn’t raced there for a while, but he’s had plenty of early education there.

“If he jumps well, we’re hoping he’ll be in the finish and qualify for the final.

“He’s still learning, but in saying that he’s always been pretty consistent with what he does.”

Stella said Jeff Crawford’s two-year-old dog, Scotch On Ice, could offer a good challenge on Regal Saint’s outside from box five.

“He’s a member of an outstanding litter – Blue Blend’s litter,” he said.

“But he’s only won three races. I noticed he won up there (at Capalaba) on Wednesday, and no doubt he’ll be very competitive as well.”

Meanwhile, Stella said Group 3 Origin Series Sprint Final winner, Magistrate, was going well as a stud dog on his property where he currently has seven greyhounds in work.

“He’s mated three bitches. Two of them are whelped already and the other one only got mated a week or two ago,” he said.

“The first bitch was Wynnum Star. She’s got one litter running at the moment by Equalizer and they’re winning races. Kerry Hoggan trains them.

“The bitch he just had pups to now is from Victoria. Her name is Mania. She’s well-related. She’s a litter sister to Equalizer. He was a powerhouse himself.

“She just had three dogs and five bitches and they’d only be a week old.

“The third bitch he only just mated, she hasn’t whelped yet. It was only last week. It was a bitch of Terry Medcalf’s called Trying Times.”

Just like his racing career where he won over $500,000, Stella believes Magistrate’s future at stud can be a bright one. 

“We’re happy with that. Magistrate has only had the three litters. He’s only just turned five years old,” he said.

“He retired at four years and three months.”