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By Greg Prichard

Steely Girl, a recent $600 bargain buy that has already returned its owner’s investment more than 40 times over, is well placed to further add significantly to that sum at the Taree race meeting on Tuesday.

The five-year-old mare ($4.60 TAB) has drawn nicely in barrier one in race five, the TAB Venue Mode Country Boosted Benchmark 58 Handicap over 1600 metres, and will be ridden for the first time by champion country jockey Aaron Bullock.

Formerly trained by Marc Conners and then Conners and his son Mitchell, at Warwick Farm, Steely Girl was put up for grabs in an Inglis Online Sale in late November.

Her new trainer, Neil Godbolt at Port Macquarie, recalled how it wasn’t hard to make the purchase of the five-year-old mare.

“My foreman, Simon Thompson, picked her out,” Godbolt said.

“He always likes to own one and we were looking to buy something to fill a hole at the stable.

Trainer Neil Godbolt.

“Simon got me to have a look at the form and I said, ‘Yeah, it’s worth a shot, if she’s not going to cost much’. A couple of unplaced runs and you get your money back anyway.

“It never had a bid until I put one in for $600 for Simon five minutes before time was up and that was it. There was no reserve price. It was there to be sold and we made the only bid.”

Steely Girl had raced 17 times, at a mixture of country and provincial tracks and once in Sydney, for two wins, one second and three thirds, before transferring to the Godbolt stable.

A change of scenery, shifting from Sydney to the Mid North Coast, appears to have ignited a new lease of life in the horse because since the move she has had three starts for two wins at Port Macquarie and a second at Tuncurry.

Her prizemoney for those three runs totals $24,950, representing that excellent return on investment.

“Simon’s happy, I’m happy, everybody’s happy,” the astute veteran Godbolt said.

“It turned out to be a bargain. They don’t come along very often like that. There’s a fair bit of luck involved along with judgement, but if you’ve been involved with horses for a long time like we have you like to think you can pick out a good buy.

“The horse seems to really enjoy it up here. She won at her first start for us and then finished second at Tuncurry and her win last start at Port was a really good effort. She showed a lot of improvement and ran away from them that day.”

During her current campaign Steely Girl has raced over 1108 metres, then 1400 and 1509 and this will be the first time in her career she has been stretched out to the metric mile.

She has gone up considerably in weight from her win in a Class 3 event at her last start and will carry 62kg, but Godbolt believes the engagement of Bullock will offset that to some degree.

“Because she’s got the big weight I didn’t want her carrying a lot of dead weight and Aaron’s a heavyweight jockey,” he said.

“He’s also a great judge of how to ride at each particular track and this is her first start at Taree.

“She likes to race handy, just off the speed, and from barrier one I’d expect her to be in the first four.

“The way she finished off last start over the 1500 I’ve got no concerns about going to 1600.

“I’m pretty optimistic about going close to winning with her again. If she keeps racing the way she has been since she got here she’ll be right there at the finish.”

Godbolt has two other starters at Taree – Savvyrocker ($4.60) in race six, the XXXX Class 3 Handicap over 1250 metres, and What A Rush ($5.50) in race seven, the Café Nosh Benchmark 66 Handicap over 1000 metres.

“Savvyrocker, if she’d drawn a good gate I’d have thought she’d be very hard to beat, but it’s nearly impossible from the outside barrier at the 1250 start at Taree,” he said.

“What A Rush was very disappointing first-up in the Country Championships qualifier at Port, so we’ll just have to see how she goes.

“Steely Girl is my best chance. She’s the only one that’s drawn a decent barrier and the soft track (Taree was rated a Soft 6 on Monday) won’t bother her at all.”

*First race 2.10pm. Gates open 12.30pm. Entry $10 adults and $5 concession. Café Nosh Taree bistro, bar and full TAB and bookmaker facilities in the air-conditioned Winning Post Function Centre. See Manning Valley Race Club Facebook page for more details.

All the fields, form and replays for Tuesday's Taree meeting