All In The Family For Aardie

Aardie's Express. Photo by Club Menangle.

THREE pacing siblings could make Albion Park’s huge Rising Sun meeting a real family affair on Saturday night.

In what must be some sort of record, three full siblings – Aardies Express, Aardies Flash and Aardie B Miki - will tackle three different feature races on the night.

More remarkably, the trio were bred in New Zealand and are raced by leviathan Canadian-based owner-breeder Mike Tanev.

The siblings are all out of Tanev’s former talented race mare Tatijana Bromac and by top US stallion, Always B Miki.

“To have three siblings, let alone full siblings like these, competing on the same feature race card is like a solar eclipse … it may happen once in a lifetime if ever,” Tanev said.

“I feel so proud and fortunate to have them and I’m lucky enough with technology to be able to get up early (Canadian time) and watch them all race on Saturday.”

Four-year-old gelding Aardies Flash has the biggest gig of the night in the $350,000 Group 1 Rising Sun.

He’s won 10 of 36 starts and ran third in last week’s Queensland Sun, but will need luck from a back row draw (gate nine) in an even race.

Tanev’s best winning hope comes with the oldest of the trio, five-year-old mare Aardies Express, in the Group 3 Fleur De Lil.

The injury-plagued star boasts 16 wins from just 23 starts and stamped herself as one of the best mares in this part of the world with a stunning win over millionaire mare Ladies In Red in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Mile at Menangle on May 4.

Aardies Express has gate one on Saturday and looks classes above her rivals.

Her return bout with Ladies In Red in Saturday week’s $150,000 Group 1 Golden Girl will be one of the highlights of the Queensland carnival.

The baby of Tanev’s trio, Aardie B Miki, is one of the manor chances in the South-East Oaks despite a horror draw (gate seven).

“She’s on the up,” he said. “She trialled amazingly well at Redcliffe and then ran a terrific race at her first Aussie start in the Redcliffe Oaks after doing a power of work.”

Tanev, who races horses throughout Australia, NZ and North American, created the brand “Aardie” to help follow his horses.

“Aardie is my nickname. It goes back to my old baseball days as a kid. The guys called me Aardie the Aardvark because I’ve got a big nose,” Tanev laughed.