Baker hopes Robusto can add to brilliant season in Stradbroke
Trainer Bjorn Baker has second-hand star Robusto (Churchill) primed to cap a huge season for the stable and syndicators Darby Racing in a bold first-up bid to land the Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
And the five-year-old will also have the backing of a sort of Murphy’s Law of stallions, as he seeks to bring Churchill (Galileo) his second Australian Group 1 – soon after he was taken off Coolmore Stud’s southern shuttle.
Robusto is a poster boy for the type of season Baker and Darby have been having. Darby bought the gelding on Inglis Digital in September for $160,000 after the five-year-old had 29 starts for six wins and eight placings for Chris Waller and his breeders Ingham Racing, earning $415,000.
In seven starts for his new connections, Robusto has become a stakes winner by taking the $2 million The Ingham (Gr 2, 1600m), as well as running three seconds, earning $1.6 million.
His success has echoed that of another of Baker and Darby’s former Waller runners in Caballus (I Am Invincible), who’s won three of nine for his new team since they bought him, also on Inglis Digital, for $315,000.
He too has become a stakes winner since arriving at Baker’s Warwick Farm base, including his last start victory in Scone’s Ortensia Stakes (Listed, 1100m). The four-year-old has also won two of three first-up runs for Baker – for two from four in his career – having gone into all three of them with two barrier trials.
Robusto, resuming since his second in the $500,000 The Lakes (1600m) at Wyong’s Saturday metro meeting on January 11, has the modest first-up record of a win and a third in seven attempts, all with Waller. That one success came at the start of his last campaign but arrived too late to save him. He was put on Inglis Digital after just two more starts.
Since then, he’s helped bolster Baker’s superb CV on second-hand horses. With another in recent times being last year’s Brisbane Cup (Gr 2, 3200m) winner, ex-Godolphin stayer Alegron (Teofilo), Baker has had 42 wins with horses from other stables, from 245 starts at 17.1 per cent.
And he’s hoping his clean slate approach with Robusto can bring a new start in terms of the horse’s first-up record, as Baker seeks back-to-back Stradbrokes following last year’s victory with Stefi Magnetica (All Too Hard).
“I can’t worry about his previous first-up stats – I’ve never had him first-up. I only got him in the middle of a prep,” Baker told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We are mindful that we’re going in first-up. But I think he’s as fit as we can get him, and at the end of the day, he wasn’t a stakes-winner for his previous trainer, so I’ve got to just look at it as him being first-up, with me.
“I can only look forward and just worry about my horse. He’s an Ingham winner, a Group 2 and a $2 million race, so he deserves a crack at the Stradbroke.”
Overall, Baker has only a fair career record for first-up winners, at 15.1 per cent, when compared with his stats for second-up (16.2 per cent), third-up (18.7), fourth-up (17.7) and fifth-up (15.9).
But with the Stradbroke having long ago been identified as his target, Robusto has been prepared with two barrier trials at Rosehill and Warwick Farm last month – winning them both – and a gallop between races at his home track last Wednesday.
Baker is hoping Robusto proves over the odds at $26 in a Stradbroke dominated by red hot $2.80 favourite War Machine (Harry Angel), whose Team Hayes stablemate Rise At Dawn (Almanzor) is the only other runner in single figures, at $8.50.
“He’s fit and well and seems really good,” Baker said of Robusto. “He’s had two trials, a gallop between races, numerous other gallops, and he’s been working really well.
“No doubt, it’s a very, very big ask and we’re mindful of that – Group 1s are always hard – but he looks well, he galloped really well this morning [Tuesday], and in terms of his work we’re very very happy with him.
“The Stradbroke has been the plan with him for a long time. He had a very good prep last time in. After the Ingham, he had another run up in Brisbane, and ran very well when second behind [Stradbroke second emergency] Transatlantic, and then he went well in the mile race at Wyong.
“He needed a good break then, and then you think about where you’re going to go and so this is the race we pencilled in.
“Two trails was always the plan, and from that point of view we’re happy with where we’ve got him.”
While Stefi Magnetica went into last year’s Stradbroke later in her campaign, some similarities exist between her assault on the race and Robusto’s.
She jumped from gate 15, while Robusto has drawn 19, but would come into 16 if all emergencies go out.
Then a three-year-old filly, Stefi Magnetica had only 50kg. Robusto comes in with a light weight for a hardened five-year-old gelding, of 52.5kg. He’ll be ridden by seasoned lightweight Kerrin McEvoy, who Baker said spoke glowingly after steering him between races last Wednesday.
And, like Robusto in the Ingham, Stefi Magnetica’s grandest success has come over the mile, in Randwick’s Doncaster (Gr 1, 1600m) two months ago. With the Stradbroke probably the toughest 1400m contest in the country, the ability to see out a longer trip is a useful attribute to take into Queensland’s feature race.
“I’m definitely happy with him at the 1400, and he gets in with a pretty good weight. Even with the gates, I’m not sure what will be a good or bad gate until race day,” Baker said.
“Between Robusto and Stefi Magnetica, they are two completely different set-ups and two different horses, but I guess the key is just ride the horse. It worked out well from a wide gate last year. One thing is – don’t panic and let’s just see how the day unfolds.”
Just as Robusto’s last win with Waller couldn’t save him from that stable’s exit door, a Stradbroke victory would come too late for his sire Churchill (Galileo).
Robusto is one of five Australian black type winners for the stallion – alongside his sole elite victor here, among three worldwide, in Attrition – but set against 155 runners, that was not enough to stop Churchill being dropped from Coolmore Australia for this spring, after seven southern seasons at stud.
Churchill has already had some success after the door was bolted, with his son Imperialist becoming that fifth stakes winner by taking last month’s Rough Habit Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) at Doomben.
The ten-year-old stallion has 31 stakes winners worldwide from 626 runners, at 4.9 per cent.
Baker’s percentages have been surging in this his finest season to date, following the opening of his new stables last year.
Sitting second on the Sydney premiership with 82 winners – behind Waller’s 127 and ahead of third-placed Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott’s 59 – Baker’s overall total of 145 winners already smashes his previous best of 128 in 2019-20.
His winning ratio of 21.4 per cent eclipses his previous best of 19.5 per cent in 2015-16, and is a huge improvement on last season’s 15.5 per cent, earned through 104 winners.
A Robusto victory in the Stradbroke would set a new personal benchmark of four Group 1s for the season – up from last term’s three.
His three so far in this campaign have been achieved with Darby hero Overpass (Vancouver) in Perth’s Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), Stefi Magnetica in the Doncaster, and Arapaho (Lope De Vega) in the Sydney Cup (Gr 1, 3200m).
Baker also claimed the Gold Coast’s $3 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) with O’ Ole (Ole Kirk), and two other $2 million races in The Invitation (1400m) with Belclare (Per Incanto) and the Sydney Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) with Overpass.
Those successes – like the $1.4 million earned by Darby’s star two-year-old Within The Law (Lucky Vega) – have helped Baker’s stable earn $24.8 million this season – dwarfing his old personal best of $14.8 million last term, still with seven weeks of the current campaign remaining.
“It’s been an amazing season across the board, over all trips and age groups,” Baker said. “You couldn’t be happier with how it’s gone.
“I’ve got a great team around me, and a lot of promising horses coming up too, so things are very enjoyable at the moment.”