A Snip Of Cyndy has repaid months of rehab and the faith of trainer Richard Butler to win the $75,000 TAB Highway Hcp (1400m) at Rosehill.
Saturday’s victory was the first trip to town for A Snip Of Cyndy and she looked right at home with an explosive finish from well back in the field. “This mare has got a heart and a brain,” Butler said. “It’s pretty emotional. To see her do that is one of the most rewarding things about working with horses.”
The daughter of Scenic Lodge sire Snippetson had won a Kembla Grange maiden when trained locally but didn’t progress as a three year-old. “She was hard to handle and they didn’t know why,” Butler recalled. “And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t any good.
“When I first got her, I didn’t realise she was sore but I worked it out and it was a case of taking her to the beach every day and treating the leg.”
Butler is based at Nowra and it took a year to bring her back. “Now when we go to the beach, she wants to roll straight away because she feels so good. I only have six in work and couldn’t count the hours that went into getting her right.”
A Snip Of Cyndy’s dam Cyndiana Star (Johannesburg) won at Flemington for Gary Portelli and she is a half-sister to Royal Commands who won a LR Ladies Day Vase at Caulfield for Barrie and Midge Griffiths.
Royal Commands (Commands) was subsequently sold to Darling View Thoroughbreds and her Sepoy filly was a $100,000 graduate from Western Breeders’ Alliance at the 2018 Perth Magic Millions. Named Regal Poyse, she won a Belmont 2yo trial for Dan Morton in December.
Snippetson sired his first Scenic Lodge-conceived winner with Bubaroochy at Pinjarra on January 15 and the Muchea nursery has a Snippetson colt closely related to in-form Melbourne mare Crack The Code at the 2019 Perth Magic Millions.
Catalogued as Lot 208, he’s from a sister to the dam of last-start Moonee Valley winner Crack The Code who will be favoured to make it a running double in the Cape Grim Beef Plate (1100m) at Caulfield this Saturday.

A SNIP OF CYNDY