Hidrix downs well-touted rivals in Canonbury to top Golden Slipper market
Another high-profile juvenile race market to get a shake-up on Saturday was the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) after the Chris Waller-trained Hidrix (Extreme Choice) made a stylish winning debut in the Canonbury Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at Rosehill.
A trio of trials prior to his competitive debut had thrown up mixed results, with well-beaten fourth and sevenths at Rosehill and Warwick Farm followed up by a much better effort when a close third over 799 metres back at Warwick Farm on January 22.
Sent off a $13 chance in Saturday’s six-runner contest under Zac Lloyd, the son of Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) was tapped for a little toe at entering the final 400 metres but, after finding top stride, came home very strongly inside the last 200 metres to run out a comfortable 1.7 lengths scorer over his stablemate Confederation (Wootton Bassett).
The Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Eviction Notice (Stay Inside) finished a further 0.2 lengths back in third, while odds-on favourite Incognito (Stay Inside) could only manage fifth.
“They’ve both got bright futures,” Waller, who has a share in the ownership of both the first and second, said. “I said, ‘ride them to finish off’ and that’s how they were ridden and they finished off very well.
“Hidrix is a lovely horse. Ricky Surace [B2B Thoroughbreds] and his son, they’re smart and astute judges of horses and they liked him and we liked him.
“We joined up and got some good people into the ownership. We’re going to have some fun.
“We have given him two educational trials. We haven’t asked him to do anything. What you saw today is more than what I’ve seen.”
Lloyd, who was having his first ride aboard Hidrix, was also impressed by the winner.
“He’s a lovely colt. He’s just bombproof, he does everything right,” the winning rider said.
“In his trials, it has looked like he has improved with each trial. The last one he had a good hitout which mentally did him the world of good.
“He travelled really well today, he was extremely push-button. It’s good to repay the owners of this expensive colt with a nice win first-time out.”
Speaking of expense, Chris Waller Racing, Mulcaster Bloodstock, and Ricky Surace’s B2B Thoroughbreds went to a hefty $1.7 million to purchase Hidrix at last year’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
“We knew he went pretty good but it was about giving him a run today and see how he ran home,’’ Surace said.
“Chris [Waller] was confident he’d run well and then progress to his next race but he was pretty impressive there, especially at the end, he was eased down that last 50 or 75 metres and the jockey said post-race that he had plenty left.
“He was a nice colt at the sale, there was obviously plenty on him for us to have to go to $1.7 million to get him but he wasn’t always going to be a Slipper type.
“He didn’t look like an early two-year-old and it wasn’t until James [McDonald] worked him the other morning and said he was really happy with him and really surprised by how well he felt, that we started to get thinking we might have a Slipper horse.’’
Hidrix was bred by Kate Nivison of Etak Thoroughbreds and she also retains an interest in his ownership, as does Newgate Farm, who stand the colt’s sire Extreme Choice.
“I’m a bit in shock, I’m speechless which is unusual for me,’’ Nivison said.
“But you know what? It’s everything I want. I want to breed proper racehorses and be known for breeding proper racehorses.
“I don’t give a sh*t about sale ring prices, my job as a breeder is to produce horses that win, that’s all I want to see, so it’s really satisfying to see a colt like this do what he just did on debut in a key two-year-old race.’’
A brother to Group 1 winner Apocalyptic, Hidrix, who became the 18th individual stakes winner for his sire, is the third winner from as many foals to race out of the unraced Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado) mare Shadow, herself a granddaughter of dual Group 1 scorer Virage De Fortune (Anabaa) and from the family of champion Emancipation (Bletchingly).
Shadow produced a filly by Pierro (Lonhro) last year and was then covered by Extreme Choice, who stood the 2025 breeding season at a record fee of $330,000 (inc GST).