Hard Kick set for winter launch as spring riches await
With three winners from their last four juvenile runners, the Lindsay Park team is enjoying a late season baby boom and connections are supremely confident that Hard Kick (All Too Hard) can extend the stable’s red-hot streak by maintaining the unbeaten start to his career at Flemington this Saturday.
Over the past four days, Team Hayes’ two-year-olds My China Plate (Exceedance), Defarzio (Zousain) and Baby Blue (Blue Point) have all registered dominant wins – by a combined ten lengths – and that momentum will now be carried by Hard Kick into his highly anticipated return to action in the 2YO Handicap (1000m) on his home track.
The son of Vinery Stud’s ultra-consistent All Too Hard (Casino Prince) got his career off to a stunning start with an effortless debut win in the Talindert Stakes (Listed, 1100m) in mid-February, and he was immediately installed as one of the favourites for the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) the following week.
Despite the temptation to press on to Victoria’s premier race for juveniles, the Hayes camp ultimately elected to divert the gelding to a pristine paddock at their Euroa base with a view to unleashing him as a more furnished product in the late winter and early spring months.
Judging by his recent trial outing at Werribee, where he comfortably accounted for his highly regarded stablemate Cruiserweight (Hello Youmzain), the spell has served Hard Kick exceedingly well and despite having to concede weight to all eight of his rivals on Saturday, co-trainer Will Hayes believes the youngster will again prove hard to beat down the famous Flemington straight.
“He’s naturally strengthened and developed and he’s definitely ready for his three-year-old season,” Hayes told ANZ News from Port Douglas, where the entire clan is currently enjoying a winter holiday.
“We weren’t 100 per cent happy to do the back-up [into the Blue Diamond] with a two-year-old, even though he looked a great chance in the race. In the end we decided to follow the advice of our vet team and put the horse first. Although it definitely wasn’t an easy decision at the time, hopefully we can now reap the rewards of it.
“Hard Kick was one of our most exciting juveniles this year, and we’ve been really happy with how he’s prepped up. We’re excited to see him back down the Flemington straight and we were already pretty confident about how he’d come back even before his recent trial win over Cruiserweight, who franked the form nicely over the weekend.
“As Dad [David] picked him out at the sales and owns him, there’s obviously a very good chance that he’ll end up in Hong Kong one day. But hopefully we can put some more black type on his CV before he leaves us. We know he handles the Flemington straight so if we’re dreaming big, then a race like the Coolmore would be a very nice option. But we’ll get through Saturday first before mapping out his full spring program.”
In the more immediate term, Hard Kick is likely to be aimed at the Vain Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) next month before stepping up to 1200 metres for the first time in the Group 3 McNeil Stakes, which like the Vain is also run at Caulfield.
Should he add a Group victory or indeed two to his Listed success on debut, it would certainly validate the potential Jimmy Unwala saw in him as a yearling when he purchased the then-colt for $30,000 under his Avesta Bloodstock banner at the 2025 Adelaide Magic Millions Sale.
Unwala subsequently re-offered the Macquarie Stud graduate as part of the Hannover Lodge draft at the Inglis Ready 2 Race Sale, with Lindsay Park acquiring Lot 19 for $140,000 after being suitably impressed by his slick 200-metre breeze-up time of 10.10 seconds.
The $110,000 profit (minus Hannover Lodge’s preparation fee) brought about a highly satisfactory result for Indian expat Unwala, a Flying start graduate who initially earned his stripes at Aquis before venturing out on his own.
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Unwala is naturally excited to see Hard Kick step out for his second start in the hope that he can become the poster boy for his burgeoning business, which to this point has predominantly been built on pinhooking weanlings.
“I’m very excited about seeing Hard Kick return,” Unwala told ANZ News from his native India, where he spends the off season each year.
“He won the Talindert so well and then I heard a rumour that he had been sent over to Hong Kong, so I was very pleased to see some back at the trials recently. If you analyse the form from the Talindert, it has held up very well and Daniel O’Sullivan rated his win very highly. The horse is still very untapped and I believe that if all goes well they may be heading to the Coolmore with him, which would be very exciting.
“Obviously I don’t own the horse, but he’s still been good for my business. I don’t usually buy many yearlings, my main business is pinhooking weanlings and breeding from mares to sell their weanlings. So with the limited opportunities I get to trade yearlings at the Ready to Run sales, it gives me a lot of confidence to know that I’m buying the right product when one of my purchases performs so well on debut.
“I wouldn’t say he was a perfect-looking yearling by any means, but to me he just looked like a horse that could run. I’ve always been taught to be a little bit forgiving of horses, and it’s definitely worked out pretty well in this instance. Hopefully Hard Kick’s early success gives other people the confidence to buy a horse from me in the future, and if he can win again on Saturday I’ll be very happy.”