Ortensia Out Of Retirement For Melbourne Spring Carnival

Ortensia

Ortensia has come out of retirement for the Spring Carnival

Six-year-old mare Ortensiahas been taken out of retirement in order to compete in this year’s spring racing carnival.

Ortensia competed in a barrier trail at Rosehill yesterday, in which she placed a fast finishing third.

The Testa Rossa mare, who was originally trained by Tony Noonan in Victoria, has now been transferred to Scone-based trainer Paul Messara.

“She’s owned by a friend of mine and she was on the verge of retirement and since I’m simply up the road he was kind enough to put her into training and see how she enjoyed the environment there,” Messara said.

“She’s a lovely mare.”

Ortensia was retired after a luckless autumn campaign this year saw her fail to finish better than third in any of her seven runs.

Her new trainer is yet to decide on a set program, but expects we will see the mare in Melbourne in coming months.

“We really haven’t selected a program for her at this stage,” he said.

“Probably the set weights plus penalty will be the right conditions for her.”

Ortensia will be looking to win the first Group 1 of her career after she had her title stripped from her following her 2010 The Galaxy win after a prohibited substance was found in her system.

The substance was determined not to be a performance enhancer.

Ortensia has won eight of her 27 career starts to date and has earned more than $1.1 million in prize money.

 

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