BEL NO. 95

With all the news surrounding Black Caviar at the moment, it was great to see the spotlight shifting – albeit slightly – to Robbie Griffiths game performer, Cascabel, who notched up his sixth career win with a solid victory over 1100m at Caulfield on Saturday.
Bred by Richard Pietrowsky and out of the Kala Dancer mare, Gogo Doll, Cascabel is owned by a great bunch of folks who have had plenty of fun with the Bel Esprit 5YO which Robbie picked up for a song at the 2007 Inglis Sydney Classic.
Cyberhorse picks up the story: Cascabel had not won since 26 April 2010 when taking out the $100,000 Blue Ribbon Foundation CRV Championship (1500m) at Bendigo.
Cascabel scraped into the 16-horse field on Saturday as second emergency with jockey Craig Newitt picking up the ride after his original mount Vocalic was scratched.
The blinkers were applied midweek at trackwork and remained on the son of Bel Esprit for raceday where it worked wonders.
Settling towards the rear of the field, Cascabel (below) flew down the outside to defeat Rocking Force by 1.25 lengths with Al’s Best Mate a further 0.75 lengths adrift in third.
All the spoils went to Cascabel who improved his impressive first-up record to three wins from five starts.

It’s well worth remembering that despite all the deserved clamour around Black Caviar, she is just one of 95 individual winners in Australia by Bel Esprit this season – plenty of champagne to go with the caviar!