Stay Focused shows he’s a force to be reckoned with
Stay Focused yesterday lived up to the hype placed on him with an impressive victory in the inaugural $150,000 Geelong Diamond (1100m), guaranteeing the Cosmic Force (Deep Field) colt a start in next month’s Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
The performance of the Bennett Racing-owned, Phillip Stokes-trained two-year-old, who won a Cranbourne barrier trial in December, has also heightened expectations on the second crop of his Newgate Farm-based sire who has 14 yearlings to go under the hammer at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Stay Focused showed an impressive turn of foot to beat Trunk (Snitzel) ($3.60) by two lengths in the Blue Diamond ballot-exempt race. The Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained Markdel (Snitzel) ($5.50) finished two and three quarter lengths away in third.
Syndicator Nathan Bennett, who lives near Geelong, made a flying visit from the Gold Coast to his home track to watch Stay Focused’s debut victory. He returned to Queensland last night to continue inspections ahead of Tuesday’s opening Magic Millions session.
“From the day we bought him we loved him – he was the highest-priced Cosmic Force colt for the season – and we’ve gone hard on him,” Bennett said.
“We’ve actually put a few mares to Cosmic Force because we love this horse so much and the way he did that was exciting.”
Bennett Racing paid $250,000 for Stay Focused at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. He’d been sold through the same Gold Coast ring as a weanling for $190,000 when bought by Mel O’Gorman’s Blade Racing.
Bred by Kingstar Farm, Stay Focused is the latest of seven winners out of Coral Reef (Galileo), who is already the dam of the stakes-placed Miss Moana (Uncle Mo) and Hollywood Mo (Uncle Mo) as well as the Bennett-raced seven-time winner Apache Star (Star Witness) and Beauty Rising (Deep Field).
Bennett’s bloodstock advisor Phil Wells helped select Stay Focused out of the Sledmere Stud draft at the 2023 sale.
Wells revealed Stokes’ decision to put a crossover noseband on the imposing colt had proven decisive despite Stay Focused winning jump–outs and barrier trials with ease.
“He went to Murray Bridge last preparation for a jump out and won that quite easily against older horses and Phil put him away with the Blue Diamond in mind, but this time in his head just wasn’t quite in the right space even though he was trialling well, he’d given Jamie [Kah] a bit of a rough ride and Daniel [Stackhouse] has done a lot of work on him,” Wells told ANZ Bloodstock News from the Gold Coast.
“Phil changed the bit on him, put the noseband on him and even though he raced with his head up a bit, he’s got a lot of natural ability.
“The best part was when he turned for home his brain sort of clicked in, it took him halfway down the straight and then he won running away.”
Newgate Farm principal Henry Field believes Stay Focused, the second winner for his sire, “could be an exceptional colt”.
“His turn of foot today was nothing short of awesome and I think he beat a very good horse in Trunk in second, so I think the race is going to stack up as a very hot form race,” Field told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“And we shouldn’t forget that Cosmic Force was favourite for the [2019] Golden Slipper and that he won the Pago Pago by seven lengths the week before, but he got injured in the Golden Slipper.”
Stay Focused’s jockey Daniel Stackhouse settled the colt just behind pacesetter Trunk, which was not the original plan.
“Our plan was actually to lead and use our barrier, but he didn’t step all the greatest and that probably worked in our favour when the pressure went on and he probably learnt a little bit in behind them,” Stackhouse said.
“He raced really well, I had a lot of horse underneath me, we improved into the corner, I gave him a little shake up and he actually kicked off the corner really nicely, went through his gears good and was very soft on the line.”
Kingstar Farm’s Matthew Sandblom has a yearling brother to Stay Focused who is set to be offered at the HTBA Yearling Sale at Inglis’ Riverside Stables in April.