A Sweet Combination

The combination of Sarah O’Reilly and Sugar Me were a formidable force on the racetrack prior to the current New Zealand Covid-19 lockdown. From seven starts they haven’t been out of the top three, achieving four wins and three placings in a short period.

The son of top sire Sweet Lou is royally bred, being out of a full-sister to Adore Me and Have Faith In Me, but he is making his own mark on the track. O’Reilly hasn’t always been hands on with the gelding.

“Early on I didn’t really have much to do with him. Just in the last six months he has become my project horse. We seem to have clicked and we do get on very well.”

“We’ve had a good partnership out on the track. He’s never finished below the top three, which is a great achievement really for the amount of starts he has had,” said O’Reilly.

O’Reilly and Cruz, as he is affectionately known at the stables haven’t looked back since the start of their association and O’Reilly plays a big part in the daily routine of the gelding.

“Usually I will drive him and jog him in the mornings, and then he likes to swim in the pool and in the afternoon he likes to be ridden a couple of times a week. And he really enjoys that, and he relaxes and does something different than what he would normally do,” O’Reilly stated.

Sugar Me was bred by the late Charles Roberts and purchased by Kentuckiana Lodge from the Woodlands Stud draft at the 2019 yearling sales. While he hasn’t come without some challenges, his co-trainer Cran Dalgety has high praise for horse and his partnership with the top junior driver.

“We had a few obstacles with Sugar Me, but we’ve found a real gel with Sarah and the horse. Their CV is reading very well, and the win ratio has been very good. She spends a lot of time with him around the farm, riding him and they have a nit together and it seems to be doing the trick,” Dalgety exclaimed.

One of their wins together included O’Reilly’s 100th in the sulky, and she is hoping there are many more to come.

“I hope me and ‘Cruz’ can keep winning races together. I’m excited to see what he can do as a 4-year-old and I hope that he can keep improving and that hopefully we can win a big race together,” she said.

From what we have seen so far, we think they are well on their way to achieving some great things together. He is just another of the progeny of Sweet Lou who are doing some great things on the track and we can’t wait to see what the future has in store for them.

Please note the accompanying video was filmed before Alert Level 4 Covid restrictions, and both it and the story were supplied by Woodlands Stud.