Prairie Flower powers home to win Durbridge Stakes at Morphettville

After 37 starts, five-year-old mare Prairie Flower is just beginning to flourish as she surged to victory in the Durbridge Stakes at Morphettville.

Prairie Flower combined with Kayla Crowther to win the Durbridge Stakes at Morphettville.

Prairie Flower is a veteran of 37 race starts, but at five years old the mare is just beginning to flourish.

In her fourth start for new trainers Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea, the sharp mare surged to victory in Saturday’s Listed Durbridge Stakes (1100m) at Morphettville.

Purchased for $150,000 in an Inglis Online Sale last year, Prairie Flower has now won back-to-back races for the stable, Saturday’s black-type win was a first, after running third at the level in the Without Fear Stakes in 2022 when trained by Henry Dwyer.

“She came to us in really good fashion, (she’s a) lovely sound mare,” Clarken said.

“David Jolly had a little bit to do with her when she was racing in South Australia, when she went online he gave me a really good push to get her and he was right.

“She went into her first-up run and she was really underdone, and the programming was against us going into her second-up run which was a stakes race (Christmas Handicap) over 1200m – she just blew out.”

Prairie Flower from the clouds in the Listed Durbridge Stakes 🔥@[e-mail]/Dxm24zlPsw

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Prairie Flower was guided to the line by gun hoop Kayla Crowther, who has ridden the mare in all four starts this campaign.

Clarken and O’Shea had the quinella in the race, with stablemate Extremely Lucky running boldly first-up for second.

“I really have to pay homage to Kayla, I had to tinker with her gear a little bit and all of my riders work really well with me but we really gel in getting these sort of horses going,” he said.

“She does the hard yards, we galloped 15 at Oakbank on Tuesday morning, and she was one of the riders to get there and do the hard yards for us.”

Clarken now has his sights set on the Adelaide Racing Carnival with Prairie Flower, the Group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) is one of four SA Group 1s worth $1m in prizemoney – and perhaps it’s time to dream large.

“I’m actually really excited about her, I’ve got a race in mind that comes up over our carnival, and we’ll most probably ease now and target it,” Clarken said.

“I don’t know if she has the class (for the Sangster), but I’ve won Proud Miss’s (Stakes) and other races with horses with less ability, and I think she can be a really high class mare for us.”

Hoop Lachlan Neindorf had recorded six second placings since snaring career win 299 on January 11, and the young Group 1 winner finally scored his elusive 300th win on Hasseltoff for the Phillip Stokes yard in race two.

Runaway Statement cruised to a comfortable win at Morphettville. Picture: Makoto Kaneko

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Neindorf then made it a double in the following race, when Runaway Statement lived up to her name in cruising to a comfortable win in a Class 2 Handicap over 1500m.

The mare, who is also trained by Stokes, smashed the 1500m track record in the process, saluting in a time of 1min 29.45sec.

The afternoon was owned by Clarken, O’Shea and Crowther however, who put an exclamation mark on their success in the last race, combining for a win with Clarence, while stablemate Yasuke also gave them another quinella.

The result saw Crowther split riding honours with Neindorf and Holder, who also scored a double on Saturday aboard Gin Spirit and Inaugural.

Clarken and O’Shea shared training honours with the Stokes stable on the nine-race card.

Originally published as Prairie Flower powers home to win Durbridge Stakes at Morphettville