Harron hopeful for $1.6 million colt Bodyguard
Big-money buy among nine-strong field for Maribyrnong Trial Stakes
James Harron’s top-priced buy of the year, a Zoustar (Northern Meteor) filly that Tony McEvoy hopes can be half as good as Sunlight; and a $50,000 bolter from the bush quoted at 200-1 in a nine-runner field, are among the juicier plotlines in Melbourne’s first two-year-old race of the season.
Bodyguard (I Am Invincible), the first foal of an unraced daughter of Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Mossfun (Mossman), was last night the second-favourite for the Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (LR, 1000m) at Flemington.
Trained by Peter and Paul Snowden, the Emirates Park-bred colt was a $1.6 million Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling sale purchase for Harron’s Bloodstock Colts syndicate, making him the heavyweight buyer’s most expensive acquisition of the year.
His third-highest, the $1m colt Espionage (Zoustar), beat Bodyguard into second by a long head at Sydney’s first official barrier trials last month, before winning last Saturday’s Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) at Randwick.
Bookmakers have Bodyguard around the $4.60 mark, while for the second week in a row Darley’s first-season shuttle sire Blue Point (Shamardal) will have the favourite in a major two-year-old season-opener, with Godolphin homebred Blue Illusion at around $2.10 last night. The team behind Blue Point will be hoping for a better showing than Scampi’s second-last at $3 in the Breeders’ Plate.
Bodyguard was scratched from that race after drawing wide – leaving three other Harron colts to it – in favour of today’s event. Despite the lottery of early two-year-old racing, particularly up the Flemington straight on a likely rain-affected track, Harron hopes the trial form around Espionage will help prove the right rein was pulled.
“It’s quite a big ask. It’s a two-year-old who was ready to go to the races a week ago, who’s been put on a truck and gone to Melbourne, amid new surroundings,” Harron told ANZ Bloodstock News. “But he’s settled in beautifully and taken it all in his stride, and seems to be enjoying it.”
Bodyguard and Espionage engaged in a hard-fought duel in their Kensington trial over 845 metres, the former popped off the fence in the straight from behind the leader, and the latter surging down the outside.
“Espionage has at least franked the trial form,” Harron said. “They were told to race each other a bit, which is good experience for them. Tommy Berry got Bodyguard off the rail and made him go through, and he spoke highly of him afterwards.
“He’s come on nicely from that. He looks like he’s shed that bit of puppy fat and tightened up nicely. He’s certainly a horse who I think will keep improving with age. He’s a big boy, a big strong horse, but still he’s shown Peter and Paul he’s ready to step out now.
“He does look physically like a progressive type of horse. I think anything he shows tomorrow he’ll build on as he gets older. He was a horse we really loved as a group, and really loved his pedigree which matched his looks. If he can gallop and put it all together it’ll be very exciting.”
Blue Illusion, the fourth foal of Godolphin’s Listed-winning Street Cry (Machiavellian) mare Alucinari, was made favourite for today’s race after leading and winning an 800-metre jump-out up the Flemington straight, under a tight hold by half a length from stablemate Eject (Street Boss).
The Tony and Calvin McEvoy stable has two runners including a filly who was comfortably their most expensive yearling purchase of the season.
Bred by the China Horse Club and offered through Newgate’s Magic Millions Gold Coast draft, Altermatum (Zoustar) fell to McEvoy-Mitchell Racing and Belmont Bloodstock for $1.15 million.
She’ll be the only named foal of the late, Listed-placed mare Alter Call (Fastnet Rock), a half-sister – out of dual Group 1 winner Response (Charge Forward) – to Golden Slipper winner Estijaab (Snitzel) and his brother, the Group 3-winning sprinter Remarque.
One of two fillies in the race, Altermatum appeared over the odds at around $26 last night, after a solid second in a Flemington jump-out in which today’s $5 elect Wolfgang (Exceed And Excel) was third.
“I respect the market, but I think this is wrong, especially because it’s a bit of a guess at this stage,” said McEvoy, delighted to have acquired the filly, and with her progress since.
“We had to go a little harder than expected, but we got her. That’s a lot of money for a filly, isn’t it? Bloody hell. But we just adored her, and of course we still do.
“She just oozed class – had a great eye, a great head, and was just a sweet-moving beautiful filly. Really, there’s not much you can forgive when you’re paying that sort of money, but she was just a queen. I didn’t think we’d get her but we’ve ended up buying her, so it was amazing.
“And now, she’s the top of the class in everything she does: temperament, stable life, anything to do with her, she’s just the most beautiful filly in every way. And temperament is such a huge part of these horses, with the pressure we put on them, and she’s just got a great acceptance of everything.”
McEvoy has some extremely bright form with Zoustar fillies, most notably Sunlight, who showed up early in winning the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) and placing third in the Golden Slipper (won by Altermatum’s ‘aunt’ Estijaab). Indeed, Sunlight ranks as the best horse McEvoy has trained in his own right, having progressed to win eight stakes races including three Group 1s – two of them up the Flemington straight against males in the Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) and Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
“I hope this Zoustar filly is as good as Sunlight. That’d be nice,” McEvoy said, before adding: “I’ve got no qualms about sending a filly against the boys up the straight. It’ll take a good colt to match it with Altermatum, I reckon.”
The stable has one of those, in Dublin Down, a first-cropper for Vinery’s Exceedance (Exceed And Excel), another Coolmore Stud Stakes winner. McEvoy bought the Edinburgh Park-bred Dublin Down – the second foal of dual Listed winner Dublin Lass (O’Reilly) – for $370,000 at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling sale. He’s been pleased with his progress, particularly the long-neck Ararat 850-metre trial win last Thursday that’s made him a $7.50 chance today.
“It was a really good trial,” McEvoy said. “His raceday manners were excellent. He sat back off them, joined in quickly and wanted the line very strongly.
“We had to pay enough for him, as an Exceedance, a first-season sire. But Exceedance was a very good horse and, interestingly, he was good down the straight.
“I never had plans to run this colt in this race, but after his trial at Ararat I thought, ‘Wow, maybe we should?’ And down the straight, it never hurts to have two irons in the fire as a stable, because not every horse handles the straight.
“I haven’t got a pick between our two, to be honest. Both have come through really nicely. Again, I can’t work out why she’s so much longer in the market than he is.”
Longer – much longer – still, is Cerons (Street Boss). He cost 32 times less than Bodyguard – at $50,000 from Inglis Classic – though his odds yesterday were almost 50 times more, at $201 at one point. While that was later trimmed in, the fact he’s trained by Scone-based Brett Cavanough, a character not known for loathing a bet, raised the odd eyebrow.
They will have raised higher on the discovery that Cerons has had one barrier trial, for a second on the Newcastle Beaumont track, when beaten four and a half lengths.
“I had Tony McEvoy ring me and say, ‘Mate, what’s going on with this?’” Cavanough said. “Everyone thinks I’m bringing some smokey down from the bush.”
He insists there’s neither smoke nor mirror involved, and that it’s simply a matter of “racehorses gonna race”.
“I’ve got a team of two-year-olds, I wanted to take this one to the Breeders’ Plate, but his ID card didn’t turn up on time, so I didn’t get a chance to trial him with those horses to find out how good he was,” Cavanough told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“So, I trialled him at Newcastle last week. He went OK, against three-year-olds. We settled back to give him a look at what was going on. There was a tearaway leader, and my bloke covered up a little bunch and didn’t go out after the other one.
“He pulled up well and I thought, ‘What do I do? Put him in a paddock or go to the races?’ I thought I’d go to the races.
“I was taking a couple of others to Melbourne, so I thought I’d bring him along. The Maribyrnong Trial Stakes only had eight or nine nominations early on. They extended noms and still only had ten. Rain was forecast, I thought half of them would be scratched, so I’d have a shot at the stumps.”
Cavanough noted horses at Scone jumped out from the 1700-metre chute regularly, allowing a straight run of some 800 metres. He remained coy on his chances at big odds, saying only that if Cerons won, “you won’t have to put much on to get a lot back”.
“I’ve never been worried about taking on the top end of town,” he said. “All I know is, my horse is in good order and I’m happy to go the races. It’ll be a rain-affected track and he’ll be like the rest of them: they’ll handle it or they won’t. Whatever happens, happens.”