Swettenham Stud

The Mark Kavanagh trained Rain Shadow bought up her third win from just six starts in the $75,000 Trevor Clarke Handicap (1400m) at Flemington today.

A lightly raced filly, Rain Shadow is a large and powerful staying type by Victorian sire Bianconi  who currently sits seventh on the leading stallions table with 90 individual winners.

Rain Shadow ($4.60,$5) proved to be a huge amount of work for premier jockey Michael Rodd who was forced to travel three wide with cover for the duration of the race in an effort to keep the filly from taking off.

Turning for home Rodd peeled to the outside and despite coming off a slow pace was able to gather the leader Azwa ($8.50,$9) in to score by almost two lengths with Pass The Parcel ($8.50,$13) battling on well for third another three quarters of a length away.

The Melbourne Cup winning trainer was happy to get the well bred filly back to her own sex and age today and will look at getting her out over more ground this preparation.

"I thought the race looked like a good option," said Kavanagh.

"She was better off against the fillies weight wise and I just thought it was a better race for her"

"She is a half sister to Rain Gauge who went round in a Melbourne Cup so she may get a longer trip," he added.

Whilst Kavanagh is content to look for more of the same for the half sister to a Group Two winner he isn't ruling out better races down the track.

"There are plenty of races around for her this time of year," said Kavanagh.

"But she is a very big horse that has taken a long time to mature so she might turn into something later on."

Rodd breathed a sigh of relief upon returning to scale telling connections the filly made him earn every cent of his riding fee.

"She is hard work all round," Rodd huffed with a wry smile.

"She pulls our arms out on the training track and did it today as well."

The win was full of merit according to Rodd who has a lot to do with both the training and riding of the young stayer and he expects her to improve a lot from the run.

"I was three wide with cover and pulling the whole way," said Rodd

"There is plenty of up-side about her"

"She will be suited when she gets out to further and I'd love to see her with a bit of pace in a race," he added.

Bianconi is standing at Swettenham Stud in Victoria for a service fee of just $8,500 and has accrued more than $2.6 million in prizemoney already this season.