Advertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\nMatamata trainers Ken and Bev Kelso sent Levakia on a big road trip on Saturday in search of reasonable track conditions, and the plan paid off with victory in the $60,000 ITM\/GIB 3YO Winter Championship Final (1600m) at Ruak\u0101k\u0101.<\/p>\n
\n Seventh over 1400m and 1500m in two appearances at Te Rapa
\n in April and May, the Proisir filly stepped up to 1600m yesterday and was strongly backed into $2.90 second-favouritism behind Acapelago.\n <\/p>\n
Jockey Jasmine Fawcett took up a midfield position in fifth along the rail, then angled Levakia to the outside coming up to the home turn. She warmed into her work stylishly down the straight, finishing over the top of Casemiro to win by half a length.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did a good job today,\u201d Ken Kelso said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big trip to Ruak\u0101k\u0101, but it\u2019s not a bad stake for this time of the year and we thought she\u2019d appreciate the better track conditions up there. We also have a feeling she might be a little bit better right-handed. So it worked out well today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get her home now, have a look at her and make a plan. We won\u2019t be in any rush with her. She doesn\u2019t like the really heavy winter tracks, and going all the way to Ruak\u0101k\u0101 and back is a big day \u2013 we wouldn\u2019t want to ask that of her too many times in a preparation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Levakia winning the ITM\/GIB 3YO Winter Championship Final (1600m) at Ruak\u0101k\u0101 yesterday. Photo \/ Therese Davis AdvertisementAdvertise with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[87652,87650,7747,9030,14334,12182,87651,56973,87646,87648,87649,5029,1071,70823,24659,87647,21029,20,66784,9350,79,6093,26339,40329,7890,16,15,32479,9356,59345,6095],"class_list":{"0":"post-222025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-1600m","9":"tag-87650","10":"tag-at","11":"tag-championship","12":"tag-conditions","13":"tag-final","14":"tag-itmgib","15":"tag-kelso","16":"tag-levakia","17":"tag-matamata","18":"tag-paid","19":"tag-plan","20":"tag-racing","21":"tag-reasonable","22":"tag-road","23":"tag-ruakk","24":"tag-saturday","25":"tag-search","26":"tag-sent","27":"tag-shines","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-to","30":"tag-track","31":"tag-trainers","32":"tag-trip","33":"tag-uk","34":"tag-united-kingdom","35":"tag-victory","36":"tag-win","37":"tag-winter","38":"tag-with"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114762496303367793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}