Ace colts step out at Rosehill barrier trials with Group 1 ambitions
Coolmore, Golden Rose and Caulfield Guineas on agenda for partnership’s three-year-olds
The Newgate Farm-China Horse Club colts syndicate has a strong hand heading into the new racing season, and yesterday the powerful partnership provided a glimpse of the cards they have to play this spring.
With ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Militarize (Dundeel) already assured of a place on the Newgate Farm roster as soon as 2024, Henry Field and his co-investors are hellbent on adding to the stallion prospects as their disposal.
At yesterday’s Rosehill barrier trial session – a day in which proven sprinters Nature Strip (Nicconi), Overpass (Vancouver) and Masked Crusader (Toronado) all auditioned for a place in the $20 million The Everest (1200m) – CHC-Newgate-owned colts Don Corleone (Extreme Choice), King’s Gambit (I Am Invincible), Heman (I Am Invincible) and Snapback (Snitzel) all stepped up their preparations.
Newgate Farm managing director Field says their respective efforts puts them on track for at least one of the upcoming open three-year-old Group 1 races run in Australia this spring: the Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m), Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Dual Group 1-placed Don Corleone won his heat, as did Snapback, but it was arguably Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) placed King’s Gambit who was the most eye-catching of the quartet at Rosehill.
The Debutant Stakes (Listed, 1000m) winner was beaten less than half a length in heat two over 900 metres on the course proper, with only Nature Strip and Overpass in front of him.
Field immediately stamped King’s Gambit as the syndicate’s number one Coolmore Stud Stakes seed in a little over two months’ time, and it is Flemington where the I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) colt is set to resume.
“Literally, from the first time he galloped, Peter Snowden’s held him in phenomenal regard. Obviously, we saw him decimate the Debutant Stakes first-up as a two-year-old before running third in a Golden Slipper with a torrid run,” Field told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“He arguably could have won that race with even luck had he got the run of the first and second horse [Shinzo and Cylinder].
“He’s a big, scopey, beautiful horse and when Peter talks about him, he talks about this being a bit different to some others.
“The Poseidon Stakes is the aim first-up and his main goal is the Coolmore Stud Stakes, so we want to give him that exposure up the straight. We think, with his size and scope, that he’s a horse who should be suited to straight racing.”
Natural off-pacer Don Corleone, who was runner-up to Little Brose (Per Incanto) in the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), ran fourth in the Slipper and second in the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), led his 1000-metre course proper barrier trial, his second this time in, to score by a length over Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Kovalica (Ocean Park).
“He is generally not a good trial horse, Don Corleone, and in his first trial they gave him a soft trial and today they applied blinkers to him, which is what races in. He was very sharp and very forward,” Field said,
“He will more than likely run in the Run To The Rose first-up and then into Golden Rose second-up. He ran second in the Blue Diamond when he was very unlucky and second in the Sires Produce and fourth in the Golden Slipper, so he is a very, very high-class colt by Extreme Choice and he’s on target to be cherry ripe on Golden Rose day.”
Less exposed are Snapback, who could follow the same path as Don Corleone after winning heat nine over 1030 metres, and Oxlade Stakes (Listed, 1300m) runner-up Heman who was runner-up in the previous barrier trial.
“We applied the blinkers to him in the (BRC) Sires Produce and the JJ Atkins last season and it probably backfired. He got beaten a lip in the Sires Produce (by Cifrado). He was three-wide the trip and overraced with the blinkers in the Sires and got nutted,” Field said of Snapback
“He didn’t trial with blinkers and James McDonald was effusive in his praise of how he felt, so he’ll be on target for the Golden Rose as well. He’s a lovely looking individual.”
On Heman, who won a Kembla Grange maiden in May on debut, the Newgate founder said: “He’s got good ability and, as we saw as a two-year-old, he was all but unbeaten. He won his first start in really good fashion and then he got beaten a lip in a stakes race at his second start.
“He’s such a casual horse that it was an A1 trial for that particular horse this morning.”
With such expectation in the months ahead, given the horses at the group’s disposal, Field wasn’t getting ahead of himself.
“All the colts who trialled this morning, the thing we’re most pleased about is they’re lovely, scopey individuals,” he said.
“They’ve all got the physical make-up that should see them train on from two to three, although you never know until they’re under race pressure.
“But they were all high-class two-year-olds and if they can make the transition, they’re certainly in the top percentile as far as natural ability goes, so we’re looking forward to seeing how they stack up in the elite races during the spring.”
Also being aimed at Group 1s this spring by CHC-Newgate Farm are Empire Of Japan (Snitzel) and Make A Call (Extreme Choice), Snowden-trained stablemates who both trialled at Hawkesbury on Monday, while JJ Atkins Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) placed Tannhauser (Dundeel), who ran third in the JJ Atkins Plate (Gr 1, 1600m) in June, will campaign in Sydney.
He has been prepared from Waller’s Gold Coast stable but he was transferred to his Rosehill base recently.