Hedge hoping stars align for Zoukerino in the Roman Consul
O’Shea-trained Snitzel colt given another shot at spring to keep Coolmore dream alive
History shows the Roman Consul Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) is a “good horses’ race” and agent Suman Hedge has been associated with one of the best on the honour roll in Zoustar (Northern Meteor), this season’s leading sire whose rise as a stallion has been as epic as his race career.
Tomorrow, nine years after witnessing Zoustar’s sheer dominance as a spring three-year-old, Hedge has the chance to add a second Roman Consul trophy to the mantelpiece via talented colt Zoukerino (Snitzel).
Zoustar memorably scored a hat-trick of wins in the spring of 2013, taking out the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), the Roman Consul and the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), the latter ensuring a significant bonus was paid to the owners of the colt after brokering a deal with Widden Stud to stand the young son of Northern Meteor (Encosta De Lago).
Zoukerino, a John O’Shea-trained colt co-owned by Hedge and Sheriff Iskander, Milburn Creek’s John Muir and Joe Richards, won his maiden in July, backed up and won the Rosebud (Listed, 1100m) at his second start, before finishing down the track in the San Domenico Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m).
“With Zoukerino, he’s a really talented colt and John’s got a very high opinion of him, but he’s still a little bit immature,” Hedge told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“He’s still not really the finished article at the moment, so I think John [O’Shea] feels he’ll be a much better colt in the autumn, but he also thinks he’s done enough to justify having a crack at this race and seeing whether or not whether he could have a look at the Coolmore after it, but he’d have to perform really well.
“If he ran like he did last start or didn’t quite live up to it then he’ll put him away and bring him back for the autumn.”
Hedge suggested it could pay to forgive the last-start performance of Zoukerino, who has subsequently run third in a 1045-metre Randwick barrier trial on September 26.
“They scoped him after his last start and he had a big clump of turf [in his throat],” he said.
“If you have a look at the replay, he was wobbling around in the straight and he was obviously not in a great place [on the inside], so I think there was a genuine excuse because he was impressive the start before and the form out of that Rosebud race has been quite good, so I think we’ve got a fairly good benchmark to where he fits ability wise.
“We go into it feeling that he’s a good chance, but we also have in the back of our minds that if he’s not quite ready now, we’ll have a nice colt in the autumn.”
Brenton Avdulla, who has ridden the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Yearling Sale graduate in all three race starts, retains the ride in the Roman Consul where he has drawn barrier eight of ten.
“He’s got very good gate speed and I think sometimes with horses like that who jump well and can be ridden positively, being drawn out is not always the worst thing because you can sum up your options a little bit and decide how positive you’d like to be,” Hedge said.
“But I try to stay in my lane with those sorts of things and leave that to the experts to work out what they’re plans are going to be.”
Also yesterday, Hedge recalled the 2013 Roman Consul win of Zoustar, a colt who won his first three starts at two and finished runner-up in the JJ Atkins Plate (Gr 1, 1600m) to round out his juvenile career, before the Chris Waller-trained horse went on his three-year-old spring winning streak after a first-up fourth in the Run To The Rose (Gr 2, 1200m).
“Looking back, the Roman Consul was probably his most impressive win. He won bigger races, but the way he won that race was very emphatic and, after that race, we knew that we had a really serious horse,” he said.
“Even though his Golden Rose win was really good, coming from the outside barrier (16) and he beat a very good field and the field in the Roman Consul that year was nowhere near as strong, he just won in really good fashion and showed a really good turn of foot that day.
“So, after that race we were much more bullish about him going into the Coolmore.”
This century, the Roman Consul, which was upgraded to Group 2 status in 2005, has unearthed a stellar group of stallions, with Zoustar joining subsequent elite-level winners and champion stallions Fastnet Rock (Danehill) (2004) and Exceed And Excel (Danehill) (2003) as well as Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) (2014), Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock) (2011), Exosphere (Lonhro) (2015), Russian Revolution (Snitzel) (2016) and Wild Ruler (Snitzel) (2020), all of whom remain active Australian sires.
The 2007 edition was not run due to the outbreak of equine influenza.
Hedge believes this year’s race – which has drawn Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) runner-up Best Of Bordeaux (Snitzel), San Domenico Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) winner Sweet Ride (Deep Field) and the highly promising Nettuno (I Am Invincible) – can again prove to be a strong spring formline.
“Since the emergence of the Golden Rose and the Coolmore, it’s become a very important race because it sits there in the middle and horses coming from Sydney often use the race as the springboard to head down to Melbourne after that,” Hedge said.
“I most definitely think it will be the case again this year as well.”