More Than Ready for Another Aussie Spring

Champion Vinery Stud shuttler More Than Ready (USA) is back in Australia for a record breaking 18^th consecutive season and if we needed a reminder as to just how a good a stallion he is we saw it in the US on Saturday when his high class colt Catholic Boy won the $1,250,000 Group I Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

Already a Group I winner this year of the Belmont Derby on turf, Catholic Boy scored a dominant four length win over the Coolmore owned Scat Daddy colt Mendelssohn in the mile and a quarter contest.

"It just doesn't get any better," said winning trainer Jonathan Thomas.

"I'm just so proud of this horse, and Javier [Castellano] was incredible. We've always believed that he's a top talent despite the surface. He's a much stronger, mature horse and this really shows that patience helps. It means we can survive another year and hopefully train some more like him, but right now, I'm just going to soak this up."

When asked what's next, Thomas said, "He's going to get a bath and about nine quarts of feed in about two hours, and he's going to get a lot of pets when we get back. I don't know. We're just going to savor this moment and just see how he comes out of it. We've always been very methodical about our approach, and we'll just take it day by day and see where goes. The beauty of it is from a timing perspective, you can go dirt or turf now. Don't know if you go to the [GIII] Hill Prince [S. on the Belmont turf] and back into deeper waters after that."

Catholic Boy has won six of nine starts and is from placed Bernardini mare Song of Bernadette.

He is one of 190 stakes-winners worldwide for More Than Ready, who stands at a fee of $66,000 this spring.