No confusing the talent of lightly-raced Bendigo filly Samanth

The three-year-old filly had racing followers talking after backing up some eye-catching recent trials by impressively winning on debut at Swan Hill last week.

Even more eye-opening and topical in conversations was how the daughter of Foxwedge, out of Hearps' smart sprinting mare Umgeton, got her name.

"She was supposed to be called Samantha," Hearps declared.

"The boys who own her come up here (to Bendigo) once a month to look at a few horses ... they're all retired now.

"They came around to home and we ended up at the pub, but after they left they rang me and suggested we get the paperwork going.

"So I was cooking dinner and having a couple of pots and I took care of it.

"One of the guys called me a couple of weeks later and he asked, 'how do you spell Samantha?'

"I told him, but he shot back that the horse's name had come back as Samanth.

"I said the moral of the story is you can do the damn paperwork yourself next time.

"Strangely enough, we've got another filly coming through - she's a Rubick out of Umgeton - and they've already decided what the name is.

"But I think I've saved myself a bit of work in the future; they won't be asking me to do the paperwork again."

Sired by Foxwedge, Samanth was named after the former 80s model and pop singer Samantha Fox.

She made quite the first impression, scoring a convincing 975m victory with Craig Newitt in the saddle.

The filly had her admirers in the betting on the strength of her second in a trial at Bendigo behind the Hayes-trained three-year-old Takashima, who ticked off his maiden two races earlier on the program.

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Samanth is not without her quirks, according to the Bendigo trainer.

"She's a bit funny compared to the rest of the breed out of the mare - they're all sort of 'hit the ground and run' horses out of Umgeton," he said.

"This one has always been a bit different. She relaxes in her work, but can slide home too.

"I reckon she'll definitely get 1400m; I'm not sure about a mile. But she will get ground.

"She's not one dimensional like (the stablemate) Enuffon. She just either sits on the pace or leads.

"Zoutons was the same."

Hearps had Samath among the acceptances for a 1000m event at Mornington this Saturday, but decided to scratch her in favour of a benchmark 64 three-year-old event the following weekend.

Longer term, he is keen to have either or both of Samanth and Enuffon in action on Bendigo Cup day on November 1.

The injury-plagued Enuffon - a dual placegetter in her only two starts - has not raced since August last year, but won a trial at Ararat on Thursday.

"As soon as we get this trial under her belt, she will be ready to race," Hearps said of Enuffon.

"She's very forward and I'm sure we can get her maiden out of the way pretty quickly."

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