Our Owner of the Month award winner for February is David Irwin owner of Vexatious Dancer, the nomination from his wife, trainer Nichole Irwin follows:
I would like to nominate David Irwin for owner of the month for February and his cracking little filly Vexatious Dancer
David saw Pink as we call her on bloodstock auctions early in 2023. We had previously had a fair bit to do with the mare Choose to Dance and her early progeny and thought the cross to Hualalai would work – we did not think we would only pay $600 for her!!
After being broken in and spelled she started her first prep and impressed us all with her professional attitude and speed – so much so that we also purchased the full brother late last year. (He has been named Vexatious Choice).
Her first start was a bit of a train wreck with bumping and shifting in front of her and no run to be found, even so she wasn’t beaten far in a city 3yo maiden.
She gained a start at Gawler after that in an open maiden and Dom Tourneur picked up the ride at 54kg. She sat wide and didn’t have much of an idea but fought hard to line to narrowly beat another very nice 3yo in Proven Correct.
She then went on to have a couple of short spells and a few unlucky starts, a nice win on Boxing Day and another short spell.
After trying her over longer distances unsuccessfully, we dropped her back in distance and back to her age for an amazing win on the 24th of February where she lead all the way and ran the fastest 600m of the day!!
We are very excited about her future!!
David is a big believer in SA bred horses – not only the ones we breed ourselves but also when buying horses, we look for good solid SA pedigrees and I think he deserves to be the owner of the month prize!
Vexatious Dancer is by Hualalai out of the Choisir mare Choose To Dance. At the time of writing, she has won three races and placed once from seven start and her earnings sit at $136,100 with $49,050 of that coming from Racing Rewards bonuses.
Her dam has produced several other progeny but none have raced to this date. The granddam is Shabet (by Amen Brother) who produced three times stakes winner Shablec (by Blevic) who won up to Group 3 and over $375,000 in prizemoney.
Shablec was a prolific producer at stud with Border (by Racer’s Edge) with 40 starts for 9 wins, 7 seconds and 6 thirds and stakes of just short of $110,000 and Kenshou (by Tayasu Tsuyoshi) who started 38 times for 7 wins, five seconds and 3 thirds and winnings of almost $120,000 being standouts.
We have every reason to think that Vexatious Dancer will continue to race successfully with plenty of others in the stable racing in form as well.