Danielle Seib is enjoying a season to remember and has risen the bar, recording new personal bests in 2022/23 in terms of most winners trained (25), starters (156), and prizemoney earned ($885,585) since kicking off her career in early 2017.
We can think back to 2019 and 2020 when Assault’N’Bathory put Seib’s name up in lights with Highway wins.
This year, the Goulburn trainer has added four more Highway victories to her resume, with King of Spades (Zac Lloyd) kicking off a golden run at Royal Randwick on New Year’s Eve when winning the 1400m Class Three while Smokeshow (Tyler Schiller) won at the same venue in January when taking out the 1100m Class Two on January 21.
In February, Amarantz (Tyler Schiller, $6.50) won the 1800m Class Three at Royal Randwick in stylish fashion before Blood River (Regan Bayliss) took out a thrilling 1400m Class Three.
Recently, Seib has been brought up winners everywhere, with Charlemagne winning at Goulburn in May and June before knocking over a good victory in the 1400m Benchmark 68 Handicap at Kembla Grange last week.
Namid won at Bathurst in May, Kenichi was too good at Goulburn in June, and Eight Of A King won on her home track on Friday, meaning it has been a splendid run of results for the stable.
On Sunday, Seib was racing at the provincials again, and it was Amarantz (Tyler Schiller, $7) getting the job done when proving too classy in the 2000m Benchmark 64 Handicap at Hawkesbury.
In a race against some decent horses, the Champion Thoroughbreds-raced four-year-old made it 20 starts for three wins and five minor placings, taking her prize money to over $150,000.
The Animal Kingdom mare was fourth-up into Sunday’s race and had contested back-to-back Highways at Randwick in May and June, respectively, before finishing ninth of ten at Hawkesbury late last month.
On the ten-day backup, everything came together, and Schiller guided the Goulburn mare to a good win.
“She’s been flying; she just hasn’t had any luck on race day,” Seib said.
“She is a mare that needs a bit of luck; she gets back and needs splits at the right time, and generally speaking, she doesn’t like the rails run, and she doesn’t like being cluttered, but it was a terrific ride by Tyler.”
It was the mare’s first win at ten furlongs, and she did it easily for connections.
“I just hoped there was enough speed so she could run home, but at the same time, you don’t want her doing too much work and getting too far back and having to make up too much ground,” Seib said.
Amarantz will head back to town next month, with Seib hoping to kick start next season with another Highway win.
“There is an 1800m highway in mid-august, so perhaps we might leave her a little bit fresher and drop back to that.”
For all results from today’s meeting at Hawkesbury, click here.
