‘I’m sure he’ll run well, but it’s a big step up’
Tracey Bartley is heading to town with a red hot smokey from the bush for the last chance to qualify for the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), but is tipping Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou’s Skyhook (Written Tycoon) to win the prize.
And neither horse might press on to the Slipper if they win Saturday’s Pago Pago Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in any case, as the picture for the Slipper in an especially even year for two-year-olds remains rather blurry.
Wyong trainer Bartley will saddle Dusty Bay (Sandbar), a son of unheralded, Wagga-based stallion Sandbar (Snitzel), who’s made a remarkable start with his first crop of runners.
He’s had two winners from six starters with the other being another Wyong gelding in Shaggy (Sandbar), who was in Slipper conversations after winning Randwick’s Pierro Plate (1100m), before dropping out of them again with a fifth in the Skyline Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m).
Dusty Bay – whose promise was confirmed when Shaggy’s trainer Allan Kehoe rode him in trackwork at Wyong – was taken by Bartley to Grafton for his first start where, backed off the map into $1.40, he bolted in by five lengths untouched over 1015 metres.
Despite the huge wraps from the bush telegraph, he’s a $23 shot for the Pago Pago. He needs to win to qualify for the Slipper, but Bartley said even if he does, he’ll most likely be saved for the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m). Of course, the temptation of next weekend’s $5 million Slipper could always prove hard to resist come Sunday morning.
A field of 12 colts and geldings will contest the Pago Pago, aiming for a shot at Australia’s most important stallion maker a week later. But despite the importance of Saturday’s last-chance qualifier at big smoke Rosehill, Bartley had been contemplating instead running Dusty Bay on Sunday, 500km to the north-west at Coonamble, before that two-year-old handicap died due to a lack of nominations.
Ryan, meanwhile, said Skyhook might also be steered clear of the Slipper even if he wins the Pago Pago, instead also waiting for the Sires’.
It all helps paint what is something of a muddled landscape around the world’s richest two-year-old race, in what most agree is a season where no one or two juveniles have emerged as pre-eminent.
Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that the Coolmore – Chris Waller-trained colt Wodeton (Wootton Bassett) is back at Slipper favouritism despite having his colours lowered in his past two starts.
The $1.6 million colt was all the rage, at around $3, after winning as he liked on debut at Rosehill on January 18.
He was unlucky when third in the Silver Slipper (Gr 2, 1100m), so his price for the Golden version didn’t change.
However, he was beaten with no excuses into a 0.74–length second last Saturday in the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), and eased to $6 equal favourite with Godolphin pair Tentyris (Street Boss) and Tempted (Street Boss). But after Tentyris was sidelined with a leg injury, the TAB elevated Wodeton back to outright favouritism, seemingly with no one else around, at $4.50.
Ryan, however, believes a shortage of stand-outs does not mean a shortage of quality.
“I think it’s a good, even bunch. There’s no stand-outs, but I reckon there’s no slouches amongst them either,” the veteran trainer told ANZ Bloodstock News, adding Wodeton probably deserved to still be favourite.
“I don’t reckon Wodeton has been that disappointing. The form around him is good, and he’s been doing well.”
Then there’s another son of Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) who’s much vaunted despite having even fewer wins than Wodeton. West Of Swindon was on Friday a $3.30 favourite for the Pago Pago, where he seeks his first win after two seconds – in November’s $1 million Golden Gift (1100m) and February’s Silver Slipper.
West Of Swindon might not have won, but his prize–money means he’s already qualified for the Golden Slipper – he’s currently eighth on the order of entry – which may be important as the shrewd Hawkes team run him today [Saturday] ahead of the quick back-up to next Saturday.
Punters could rally behind Skyhook after his enormous run last start, at his second outing, when second in the Skyline Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) to Rivellino (Too Darn Hot).
Badly checked at the 300-metre mark when squeezed between runners, the $575,000 colt defied his inexperience by regathering himself and surging home on the fence, only going down by 0.14 lengths, and was in front soon after the post.
“It was a good run,” the Rosehill-based Ryan said. “That check at the top of the straight probably cost him the race. He had to start again, whereas the winner had his momentum up.
“You love to see that in a two-year-old, especially when he’s a horse who’d only had one jump-out, one barrier trial, and one race. He showed a lot of race sense.
“I’m confident he’ll run well. Whether he wins or not I don’t know. West Of Swindon will be hard to beat. I see him of a morning at Rosehill, and he looks like a nice horse going forward.”
Ryan and Alexiou already have Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner King of Pop (Farnan) going to the Slipper.
While the current official order of entry lists him as 17th, but with five above him including the now spelling New Zealand-based colt, Return To Conquer (Snitzel), who will not be making the trip, King Of Pop is actually 11th. Wodeton is also safe now, incidentally, at a real ranking of tenth.
That’s not the case with Skyhook, who’s 25th and would likely need to win the Pago Pago to be sure of a Slipper berth. In any case, his connections are equivocal in continuing to Rosehill’s big day in a week’s time if he won the Pago Pago.
“We’d sum it up after the race. A couple of the owners aren’t pushing big time to go to the Slipper. We might wait three weeks and go to the Sires’,” said Ryan.
However, while acknowledging the quick back-up was perhaps not ideal for a two-year-old, Ryan added caveats, including some past Slipper winners.
“The quick back-up has been done. Shinzo did it, and Stratum did it,” Ryan said. “And if you were to back Skyhook up, you’d back him up on his home track, because there’s no float trips involved.”
Wading in amongst these contemplations, and these high-priced, blue blooded city types, come Dusty Bay.
Like Shaggy, he was sent to a Wyong trainer by breeders Kooringal Stud, who stood Sandbar last year for an $8,800 (inc GST) fee which would appear a good chance of getting a bump for the 2025 breeding season.
In an intricate web, Bartley trained Dusty Bay’s dual country winning dam Magic Dust (Magic Albert), who was later bought online for just $1,000 by Kooringal, who in time put her to Sandbar to produce what is now Bartley’s two-year-old.
And in another twist, Ryan was in a trio who bought the yearling Sandbar for $650,000, before something of an unfulfilled 21-start career featuring four wins – two at Listed level – and an eighth in the 2018 Slipper.
Bartley agreed there’d be irony if Ryan were beaten in the Pago Pago by a son of Sandbar the relatively obscure stallion, but as much as he rates Dusty Bay, he can’t see it happening.
“I think Gerald’s horse will win the race myself,” Bartley told ANZ. “I think he goes good, that horse.”
Bartley agreed there was “no great stand-out” among the nation’s two-year-olds. He mentioned Skyhook amongst the top echelon, while also reminding of the class of Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Devil Night (Extreme Choice), a $9 equal third favourite for the Slipper and perhaps dismissed by some for just hanging on over the same trip at Caulfield.
While it may sound perverse that a horse contesting the Slipper-qualifying Pago Pago might instead have been racing the next day in a suitably dry country town of 2,600 people, Bartley feels Dusty Bay will acquit himself well, despite drawing awkwardly in gate nine for Jay Ford.
But Bartley – the former Listed-winning jockey who gained training fame through triple Group 1 winner Sniper’s Bullet (Bite The Bullet) – feels Dusty Bay will be better placed over longer trips, such in the 1400-metre Sires’, the ATC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), or Eagle Farm’s JJ Atkins (Gr 1, 1600m) in June.
“It’s a hard race, the Pago Pago, but I’ve got no option now they’ve canned Coonamble on us,” Bartley said. “We’re gonna throw a dart at it.
“I’m sure he’ll run well, but it’s a big step up. You’re talking about going from a bush maiden at Grafton to some very smart two-year-olds.
“I’m sure our guy will run well, but he’s going to make a really good three-year-old, and I think you’ll see him in Brisbane for the Atkins; that’s the type of horse he is.
“He wouldn’t run in the Slipper even if he won the Pago Pago.”
When asked if a win on Saturday and the guaranteed start in the $5 million Slipper might change his mind, Bartley thought for a few seconds, but then said: “I wouldn’t run him myself, personally, not when you look at the horse.
“He’s not a Slipper horse, they’d run him off his legs. He’s too big and he’s too long. He takes a beautiful big stride. He sat up on the lead the other day at Grafton, but it was a pretty ordinary race, to be fair.
“If he runs really well, and I’m hoping he can run top four, we’d have to look at the 1400 of the Sires’ for him. That’s what I’d do.”
Rosehill was rated a soft 5 on Friday, but with sunny, hot weather forecast, a good surface could be expected for Saturday.