Waterhouse and Bott aiming at Golden Gift and Slipper with impressive Sovereign Hill
Sovereign Hill’s resemblance to another son of Written Tycoon (Iglesia) in Capitalist was unmistakable to Kestrel Thoroughbreds’ Bruce Slade and while the two-year-old has a way to go to match the feats of the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner the colt made the perfect start yesterday.
The Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Sovereign Hill’s debut victory, in a class record time of 56.97 seconds over the 1000 metres at Warwick Farm, has connections eyeing the Golden Slipper in the autumn and, more immediately, next month’s $1 million Inglis Golden Gift (1100m) at Rosehill.
Kestrel Thoroughbreds principal Slade has become a familiar face back in the fold with Waterhouse and Bott in recent years, assisting in sales selection, a haul which includes the highly talented $280,000 Inglis Classic purchase Sovereign Hill.
Newgate Farm-based sire Capitalist, the winner of the 2016 Golden Slipper, won the Breeders’ Plate (Listed, 1000m) on October 3 and while Royal Sovereign wasn’t ready for the early two-year-old barrier trial or the traditional NSW season-opening juvenile race, it didn’t take him long to make his mark.
Slade revealed Waterhouse and Bott were confident that Sovereign Hill, the $2.25 favourite who was ridden by Adam Hyeronimus, could make a winning debut.
“It’s not often that they will run a two-year-old off just the one trial outside of the Breeders’ Plate and Gimcrack, they sort of have an official jump–out, a trial and then they race, so I think they went there [Warwick Farm] with a horse who they thought had a lot of ability,” Slade told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“He was definitely on the soft side and not everything went his way. He missed the kick and he [Hyeronimus] had to heel him up a bit to get to a position and he was still very, very good. I loved his action, he ran a class record and he was 0.6 of a second outside the track record on debut as a two-year-old, which pre-Christmas is pretty encouraging.”
Owned by a syndicate led by Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng, Sovereign Hill put a 2.4-length margin on Art’s Alive (Snitzel) while Counteroffensive (Deep Field) was 1.45 lengths away in third.
“Sovereign Hill reminded me so much of Capitalist, being so square through the hips, and he had two-year-old written all over him, so it’s nice to see him produce it early,” said Slade, who identified the colt from the Silverdale Farm draft.
“It is hard to go and buy those horses purely on spec, so you try and build the ownership before you go in and bid strongly and we really appreciate Mr Zhang and Sam [Fairgray] for teaming up with this horse and then being able to put our owners in the other half.”
Bott also suggested that the Sheriff Iskander-bred colt, who is out of Group 1 winner Music Magnate’s (Written Tycoon) half-sister Taraji (Bramshaw), had more to give.
“There will be nice improvement off the back of that as he only had the one trial,” Bott said.
“You could see that the race day experience was getting to him a bit pre-race, but he was a professional once on the track.”
The Golden Gift is at Rosehill on November 11 with the majority of the Breeders’ Plate and Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) runners in the spelling paddock and unlikely to feature in the $1 million race.
That includes Royal Sovereign’s Breeders’ Plate-winning stablemate Espionage (Zoustar) and runner-up Straight Charge (Written By), the latter also owned by Yulong.
“Royal Sovereign carried a lot of extra condition and he just needed that extra bit of work before Adrian and Gai wanted to trial him, so he came up a little bit later [than the Breeders’ Plate trials] and this allows him to get onto that Golden Gift path,” Slade said.
“They think he’s top class and if you run top two or three in that race you’ve pretty much got yourself in the Slipper and you can work back from there.”
Royal Sovereign was the first leg of a winning double for Waterhouse and Bott with another Silverdale-raised horse and stablemate to the exciting two-year-old in Kaizad (Capitalist) winning race two.