Lightly raced Pencarrow prospect Starry Eyed (NZ) (Darci Brahma) capped an improving form line with a dominant victory in Tuesday’s $18,500 Van Dyks (1560m) at Rotorua.

This week’s breakthrough victory came in the third career start for Starry Eyed, who had finished seventh on debut at New Plymouth last December and then returned to racing with a promising third at the same venue on October 25.

The four-year-old was ridden by Masa Hashizume on Tuesday and eased back from her wide gate to settle in third-last.

Starry Eyed began to move closer coming down the side of the track, then angled to the outside at the top of the straight to make her bid. Starry Eyed quickened smartly and bounded to the lead, opening up a winning margin of three and a quarter lengths.

Starry Eyed is trained by Steven Ramsay and Julia Ritchie and has now earned $12,395 from her three-start, one-win career. She was bred by Pencarrow Thoroughbreds Ltd and is raced by Sir Peter Vela.

The sire of Starry Eyed is Darci Brahma (NZ), who was himself bred by Pencarrow and sold through their draft for $1.1m as a yearling at Karaka in 2024. Darci Brahma was a five-time Group One winner on the racetrack and has gone on to sire 582 winners from 827 runners, with 58 individual stakes winners including 12 at Group One level.

Starry Eyed’s dam is fellow Pencarrow homebred Floating Heart (NZ) (Encosta De Lago), who herself had 14 starts for two wins and seven placings. Floating Heart is a daughter of Pencarrow’s Group Three-winning mare Amaryllis (NZ) (Red Ransom), whose half-sister Papilio (NZ) (Redoute’s Choice) was another stakes-winning mare in those blue and white hooped Pencarrow colours.

Starry Eyed is the first winner out of Floating Heart, who produced an All Too Hard colt in 2022 and a Super Seth colt last year.