There was a busy set of 16 trials at Randwick on Monday morning with some serious spring horses on show in the first heat won by Mazu, while later in the morning we spotted a couple of promising three year-old heat winners with very famous siblings.
Group I winning sprinter Mazu was in a cantankerous mood before the start of his trial and had to be sent to the gates in the opposite direction when he flatly refused to go the normal way. He got his head together when the gates opened and led all the way for Regan Bayliss to win narrowly over late closing Everest contenders Stefi Magnetica and Think About It, who won the Everest last year and has not won since.
Winner of last year’s King Charles Stakes and looking to repeat the effort, Fangirl was in cruise control having a tick over trial to finish a close fifth.
A half-sister to multiple Group I winner Godolphin superstar Hartnell (GB), well bred Zoustar filly Dominetta is certainly being given a good build up for her return by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. She went around in the $500,000 Magic Millions Debut for fillies in January finishing third to stablemate Too Darn Lizzie and was having her third trial this preparation when scoring a half length win.
Dominetta was a $500,000 Magic Millions purchase from Arrowfield Stud , who share in her ownership along with US based Mt Brilliant Broodmares. She has plenty of staying blood through the European side of her pedigree and might appreciate something further than the 1000m race in which she made her debut.
Clayton Douglas is making plenty of news in Sydney at present with his stablestar Giga Kick on the Everest trail and he also has that horse’s three year-old three-quarter brother Pantoja along for the ride and he won a trial this morning. Pantoja was third on debut at Bendigo back in May and had James McDonald on board.
Bred and retained to race by Jonathan Munz as was Giga Kick, Pantoja looks a lot like his famous sibling and is by another Redoute’s Choice sire son in Pariah, while Giga Kick is by another of his sons Scissor Kick with both of these stallions starting off at Arrowfield before being moved elsewhere.
Pantoja appears to be the last foal from Rekindled Applause (GB), who has had 10 foals to race for seven winners and he does look as though he can make it eight.
Click here for all the trial results at Breednet with Sale Mail and at Racing NSW with video.