Victory in the Listed IRT Wellesley Stakes (1100m) is becoming a force of habit for Michael McNab as the northern hoop claimed a third-straight win in the two-year-old feature at Trentham with impressive filly Archaic Smile.

McNab guided two classy juveniles to Wellesley glory in 2021 and 2022 with Hanalei and Codigo respectively, and on this occasion partnered with the Tony Pike-trained daughter of Saxon Warrior, who was having her third race-day appearance.

After racing greenly on debut at Te Rapa in November, a much-improved Archaic Smile breezed to victory second-up at Otaki and announced herself as the leading contender for the Wellesley, starting a warm $2.20 favourite.

Jumping from barrier four, McNab settled Archaic Smile in behind a strong tempo set by Macaluso as the eight-strong field descended down the Trentham chute. McNab eased the filly between horses at the top of the straight and only placed pressure on her approaching the 300m, Archaic Smile showing a professional turn-of-foot to dash away by two lengths.

Te Akau debutant Nebuchadnezzar showed promise in striding into second position under Warren Kennedy, edging out pacemaker Macaluso who fought well for third.

Pike had spoken highly of Archiac Smile leading into her maiden stakes-level challenge and was pleased to see a dominant display.

“She’s just a filly that’s kept on improving, her work through the week has been outstanding especially at Ellerslie on Monday and I thought she’d be extremely hard to beat when taking a sit behind the speed,” he said.

Pike revealed post-race that Archaic Smile had remained at his Cambridge stable due to the impending closure of the Singapore Turf Club, with the filly’s owner Masa Otani a prominent supporter of New Zealand-bred horses in recent years.

“Yoshi Manawa, who works for me, looks after a few horses for Mr Otani from Japan. This filly was bought here from Singapore for her early education, but with Singapore closing he’s left her here which is a huge boost for us,” he said.

Archaic Smile is ineligible for the much-awaited $1 million TAB Karaka Millions 2YO (1200m) in a fortnight, but elite-level two-year-old events such as the Gr.1 Sistema Stakes (1200m) on March 9 now become a target for the filly.

“We’ll just work our way through the targets, there’s a few Group One two-year-old races for her,” Pike said.

“We’ll get her home from Wellington, she’ll have a short break after this then we’ll work out a programme towards those races. It’s just good to get a stakes win on the board as a filly,” Pike said.

“This filly has probably got a bit more precocious ability than Impendabelle had, she’s a really natural two-year-old and very professional.”