New Stakes-Winner for Nicconi

Widden Stud’s quiet achiever Nicconi posted a couple of early winners on Saturday with Hear the Chant claiming her first stakes win at Caulfield, while Niccolance gave promise of stakes success in the future with a stylish victory at Randwick.

A homebred for the Devitt, Gordon and Hayes family as was earlier stakes-winner Wait For No One, Hear the Chant showed good ability when winning on debut at Sandown back in June.

Sent to the paddock straight after by the Hayes / Dabernig training partnership, Hear the Chant was luckless when resuming from a spell to finish last in the Group III MVRC Scarborough Stakes, but quickly made amends in this 1200 metre Group III MRC Thoroughbred Club Stakes.

Allowed to find her feet by Dwayne Dunn, Hear the Chant found the line strongly to win by a short half head.

“It was frustrating,” Hayes said, when commenting on Hear the Chant’s previous unplaced effort at Moonee Valley.

“Dwayne had to ease her out of the race late because he couldn’t get a clear run at them.
“But she’s come along beautifully since that last run and I thought if she got a fair crack at them today she could win.

“She had the right run today and turned in a career best performance.”

Hayes is considering heading back to Moonee Valley for redemption on Cox Plate day.

“There is a nice fillies race there for her so at this stage that’s the plan,” Hayes said.

The eighth stakes-winner for Nicconi, Hear the Chant has won two of three starts earning $117,000 and is the second winner for metro winning More Than Ready (USA) mare Quietzer, who is married to Nicconi having visited him in each of her six seasons at stud.

Also scoring for Nicconi was improving three year-old Niccolance, who led all the way to win as he pleased over 1400 metres taking his earnings past the $250,000 mark.

Peter and Paul Snowden said Niccolance will likely have conditions to suit in the coming weeks and could even feature in Melbourne during the back end of the carnival.

“Confidence is a massive thing. He’s always had that little bit of ability but wet tracks were just killing him early on in the winter,” Snowden said.

“It wasn’t a fluke the other day and he was quite impressive going from 1100 to 1400 (metres).

“Obviously there is a temptation to go south but we’ll place him to win again and then who knows what he could do. He could pop in a nice race maybe later in the carnival.”

A $125,000 Magic Millions purchase for his former trainer Kevin Moses, whose wife Jenny shares in his ownership, Niccolance was bred and sold by boutique Victorian farm Burnewang North.

He is the first winner for Nonchalance, a half-sister by Lonhro to Group I winner Complacent.

An under-rated sire that produced 99 winners last season, Nicconi is great value at an $11,000 fee