Snitzel colt Highness sits atop Wyong podium with Magic Millions next target
Freedman set to follow Classic blueprint set by Harron’s Slipper winner Capitalist
Highness (Snitzel) will follow the successful Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) blueprint used by Capitalist (Written Tycoon) eight years ago after the valuable colt entered Gold Coast reckoning with a barnstorming victory at Wyong yesterday.
The Michael Freedman-trained Highness, carrying the same James Harron Bloodstock colours as Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Capitalist (Written Tycoon), caused a minor upset in the Magic Millions Wyong 2YO Classic (RL, 1100m) and in the process stamped himself as a serious two-year-old for the future.
The $900,000 Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) colt ran down favourite Spywire (Trapeze Artist) in the final stages of the $200,000 feature, a key lead-up to the Gold Coast.
“He is still a little bit ‘showy’ in condition and I think just learning to be a racehorse. Obviously, early in his career he hasn’t put it all together yet,” Freedman said post-race.
“I think he’s done a lot of that today on raw ability, so hopefully if he comes through it well we’ve got a ticket for the Gold Coast.
“They ran very good time, which is always a good indication with young two-year-olds. Even though it was only a small field, it might be a pretty good [form] race.”
Spywire ($2.05), who was scratched from last week’s Phelan Ready Stakes (Listed, 1000m) in Brisbane and found to be one-out-of-five lame after yesterday’s race, was sent to the lead by jockey Tyler Schiller who crossed second favourite Toque (Street Boss) ($3.10) while Highness trailed the pair.
When Toque rolled out on the home turn, Highness and jockey Tommy Berry began to make ground but it appeared Spywire had too much of a break until the final 100 metres when the eventual winner launched a late burst to score by an impressive three–quarters of a length.
Toque was almost five lengths away in third with Highness stopping the clock in 1:03.25 seconds and running his last 600 metres in 34.21 seconds.
Freedman admitted that Highness left him concerned “about how disinterested he was” early in the race.
“Tommy had to give him one around the backside just to wake him up. I think he’s got a really good future,” Freedman declared post-race.
“I liked his run in the Breeders Plate where he didn’t have a great deal of luck [when sixth]. He had a little bit of a let up and went to Newcastle for a trial the other day. He’s a nice colt.”
Berry agreed with Freedman’s description of Highness.
“He’s a very laidback character and I said that to Michael, James and the team after his trial up at Newcastle, ‘don’t worry, I know he only won it by a length or so, but I felt like I just had so many gears’,” Berry said.
“He’s still a baby and when I trialled him before his first-up run, he and Bodyguard are very similar in type, they’re both lovely, but I felt with this guy that he’d always be better with the prep and that showed here today.
“That’s probably as underdone as you’re going to see him. There’s a lot more improvement in there.”
Highness joins ATC Breeders Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Espionage (Zoustar) and Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m) winner Bodyguard (I Am Invincible) as the third two-year-old stakes winner this season for the James Harron-led colts partnership.
The syndicate’s best-known horse, 2016 Golden Slipper winner Capitalist, also won the Wyong lead up race before taking out the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) at his third start.
Selected by Harron from the Segenhoe Stud draft at last January’s Magic Millions sale, Freedman suggested the colt was unlikely to race again prior to the $3 million January 13 race.
Unlike Capitalist, who won the 2015 Breeders Plate (Listed, 1000m), Highness finished sixth.
“We’re four weeks away or thereabouts and I’d think he’ll need a trial or something,” Freedman said of Highness contesting the Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
“I don’t think we need to go to the races again. I think he just needs a trial two weeks to ten days out to keep him up to the mark.”
Highness is a half-brother to three winners and a son of Diana’s Star (Northern Meteor), an unraced half-sister to Australian Horse of the Year Dissident (Sebring).
Diana’s Star has a yearling colt by So You Think (High Chaparral) who will be offered at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in April and a colt at foot by Maurice (Screen Hero) and she is back in foal to Snitzel on September 27 service date.
Merchant marching towards the Gold Coast
Meanwhile, the cameo summer campaign of Group 1 winner Royal Merchant (Merchant Navy) got off to the right start by scoring in the $150,000 Magic Millions Wyong 3YO & 4YO Stakes (1200m).
The Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained four-year-old mare and her stablemate, the runner-up Semana (Winning Rupert), are now likely to target Magic Millions races on the Gold Coast next month.
Bred by Edinburgh Park Stud’s Ian Smith and sold to her trainers at the 2021 Gold Coast sale, Royal Merchant defeated Semana by a neck to record her fifth win and her first as a four-year-old.
The Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou-trained Silentsar (Russian Revolution) was two and a half lengths away in third.
Royal Merchant’s return to the winning circle put behind connections’ spring frustration, an eighth first-up behind subsequent Group 1 winner Magic Time (Hellbent), a sixth in the $2 million Invitation (1400m), won by another Group 1 winner in Espiona (Extreme Choice), and a last-start fourth in the Hot Danish (Gr 2, 1400m), a race taken out by Roots (Press Statement).
Given a freshen up since the Hot Danish, Royal Merchant was sent back to the barrier trials, winning a Newcastle heat on November 30.
Her trainers also added blinkers to her gear for yesterday’s race.
“She was very well placed at the weights, she is a Group 1 winner, blinkers first time. She was in the perfect spot, travelled well and she was good late,” Ciaron Maher Racing’s Sydney-based assistant trainer Johann Gerard-Dubord said post race.
Jason Collett, who had ridden Royal Merchant at her previous two starts, said the blinkers made a difference.
“They helped, she was sharp. She sat on top of a too quick of a speed last start over 1400 and she had a trial in between which was really good and the set weights really suited,” Collett said.
“She is a horse who doesn’t want to be overdoing it early, so it’s a matter of working across and she did it easily enough to be outside the leader.”
Gerard-Dubord was also pleased with the first-up run of Semana, who had been spelled after running in the Winter Challenge (Listed, 1500m) at Rosehill in July.
“She has a very good record and she just keep getting better every prep. She comes back stronger every time,” he said.
“Until you see it on race day it’s hard to tell but she is in for a good prep too.”
The $1 million Magic Millions Fillies and Mares (1300m) was the probable target for both mares.
Royal Merchant, who has banked $726,000 for her connections in 17 starts, is a daughter of three-time winner Seventhchic (Seventh Reason), herself a half-sister to the stakes-placed Alburg (Rubick).
Her three-year-old unraced half-brother Turn The Corner (Rubick) is in training in Brisbane with Tony Gollan, while her two-year-old half-brother Royal Victory (The Autumn Sun) will be trained by Phillip Stokes in Victoria. Stokes and agent Rick Connolly paid $170,000 for him at this year’s Gold Coast sale.
Seventhchic has a yearling filly by Graff (Star Witness), who will be offered by Amarina Farm as Lot 168 at the Magic Millions sale next month, and she had a colt born on November 4 by one-season Darley shuttler Palace Pier (Kingman) this year.