Soothsayer looking to turn back time in Winx Guineas
Lee Freedman-trained gelding out to make black type breakthrough in late-season feature
A race of great significance in Australian turf folklore – the Winx Sunshine Coast Guineas (Gr 3, 1600m) – arrives today as an event in which a couple of runners can not only earn late-season black type but also turn back the hands of time.
Lee Freedman saddles the favourite, Soothsayer (Divine Prophet) for his chance of a first stakes win in his latest incarnation – from the Melbourne-based mega trainer who was one of the largest in the world, to the boutique conditioner with a couple of dozen horses enjoying life and warmth on the Gold Coast.
John Symons and Sheila Laxon – the also ex-Victorian–based couple who separately had headliners like Bel Esprit (Royal Academy) and Ethereal (Rhythm) two decades ago – seek their first black type success as a partnership in 16 years, having possibly unearthed a special one in Knight’s Choice, who they bought in 2021 as the son of an unproven sire called Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt).
The best reminiscence of all had loomed yesterday when second emergency City Of Lights (Deep Impact) – whose half-sister Winx (Street Cry) began her 33-straight winning streak in this race in 2015 – gained a run after three scratchings. However, that script was dashed when the daughter of Vegas Showgirl (Al Akbar) – the Kiwi mare whose only Australian win had also come at this meeting in 2007 – was also scratched, owing to a wide gate.
Freedman has had 127 Group 1 victories – the fifth most in Australian history – and 515 stakes winners. His last black type was a Singapore Group 3 in 2020, but, having set up his Gold Coast boutique yard a few months later, he today has a strong chance of reaping number 516, with a gelding bought for a song.
He and Dream Thoroughbreds paid just $20,000 for Soothsayer at the Magic Millions March sale. That was despite a gender-balanced 4×4 cross of Danehill (Danzig), brought in his female line by his third dam, South African Oaks (Gr 2, 2450m) winner Stormy Hill, a daughter of the great triple Oaks-winning November Rain (Estaminet).
From 14 starts, Soothsayer has now won almost $400,000 – including $106,000 in QTIS bonuses. One of his five wins came over today’s course and distance last November, while he resumed three starts ago with a third at long odds over 1200 metres at the same track in the transferred Group 3 Gold Coast Guineas, behind the exciting Yellow Brick (The Mission).
Soothsayer’s last-start narrow third in Eagle Farm’s Gunsynd Classic (Gr 3, 1600m), in which Yellow Brick was second, earned him favouritism at around $3.30 for today’s race, in which he’ll jump from gate three under first-time rider Tim Clark.
“He’s in good order,” Freedman told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. “He’s had three weeks between runs – there wasn’t a three-year-old race that suited him really – but he’s done plenty of work.
“He’s also won at the Sunshine Coast, which is a strangely configured track, because it’s like an inverted saucer, with a crown running up the middle. If you get wide of the crown, it’s very hard to win, so the rail placement is significant there. When the rail’s in, I like to be drawn in, which is what we’ve got in this race.
“His Gunsynd run was a good, solid run. He’s always found Yellow Brick hard to beat but he only just shaded him that day. There’s no Yellow Brick in this, and it sets up well for him.”
Freedman, 66, said he was enjoying his new life on the Gold Coast – “chilly mornings but warm days” – where he has 26 horses on his books.
“It’s alright. It’s very different to training in Asia, which was an interesting three-and-a-half years,” he said. “And the Australian system has evolved enormously in the last ten or 15 years. It’s now massive stables with huge backing – they’ve got 300, 500 horses in work. That’s the way the industry’s trending. Not that I can get there, but I wouldn’t want to be that big either at this stage.
“I’ve just got a small stable and that’s alright. We haven’t had many horses to run in these sorts of races. Mainly we’ve just been going to the provincial or bush circuit and occasionally running in town. Soothsayer’s been our best horse by far because he’s been very consistent in town.
“He was a really cheap horse. There was nothing wrong with him, though he was on the small side. But he’s done a fantastic job already and he’s a great advertisement for the QTIS bonus scheme.”
Despite their earlier separate successes, Symons and Laxon’s only Group win as a partnership came in Adelaide’s Spring Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in 2007, with Zupaone (Flying Spur). But they are starting to believe they might have caught the Extreme Choice train in style just before it left their station – budget wise – by snaring Knight’s Choice for just $85,000 in 2021, when his now famous sire’s first starters were just hitting the track.
After an early gelding operation, Knight’s Choice has evolved through his first preparation to win three of his six starts, including two over this course and distance, at his home track. His last-start length win in a 1650-metre Doomben Benchmark 65 was followed by reports his three owners had knocked back offers of up to a million dollars for him.
“We liked him as a young horse at the sales,” Symons said. “We got in on the ground floor with Extreme Choice. You wouldn’t get one of his for that price now.
“We trained the dam [Midnight Pearl] and a half-brother to the dam, Denoninator, who won nine races. So we liked this one but we knew he’d take time. He was pretty unruly early. We had him gelded and left him alone for six months, which is why he had a late start. He’s not all that big, but his dam and his sire weren’t either, and he’s come on great this preparation.”
Knight’s Choice, who’ll jump from gate six under promising apprentice Jaden Lloyd, was around the $12 mark last night for this, his sternest test, which looks likely to precede a southern spring campaign.
“We think that’s what we’d like to do with him,” Symons said. “We’re confident he’ll run a good 2000 metres.
“He’ll run a really good race. Whether he can win is another matter – it’s a pretty open race with a big field and lots of chances and this is a big step up in class – but I think he’ll be in the firing line.”
The Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou-trained Grebeni (Ocean Park) represents perhaps the strongest threat among today’s southern raiders. After winning his past three starts in Sydney, he was a $4 chance last night.
Fellow Sydneysider, the John Thompson-trained Crafty Eagle (Starcraft) was around $8 after winning a Randwick Midway before a Benchmark 78 fifth at the same track last start.
Tony Gollan’s Chairman (Snitzel), last-start winner of the TL Cooney Plate (1350m) on Ipswich Cup day, was the only other runner in single figures at around $9.