The
familiar grey and red diagonal stripe colours of well known Sydney owner Alan
Bell have been carried by some outstanding horses and this three year-old debut
winner at Randwick on Wednesday may well end up adding his name to the list.
Prepared by Team Hawkes, three year-old More Than Ready (USA) colt Trope has
been given plenty of time to mature, but with three recent barrier trials in
January was well and truly primed for race day.
Drawn wide in the field of 11, Tommy Berry was happy to let Trope dawdle from
the gates and settle last in the 1100 metre maiden, but when angled into the
clear at the top of the straight and asked to go forward we saw a very different
horse.
Trope grabbed the bit and set sail for home, surging past everything until only
Snitzel filly Got Your Six remained in his sights. She fought the brave fight before
being headed on the line to go down by a head.
"It’s a credit to Alan (Bell) and our team as he’s taken a lot of time to come
to hand,” said Michael Hawkes.
"To be fair he still doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
"Tommy probably got a bit further back than we thought, but we tell them to
ride them where they are comfortable and once he got him balanced up he really
attacked the line.
"Hopefully we have another nice horse on the rise, but we’ll just take it race
by race.”
A $500,000 Inglis Easter purchase for Alan Bell from the Cressfield draft, Trope
is a half-brother to stakes-placed Selectify and Laser Flash being the fifth
winner from five foals to race from stakes-winning Galileo (IRE) mare Personify.
A half-sister to Group I winner Laisserfaire, Group III winner A Time for Julia
and stakes-winners Time Thief and Foreplay, Personify is from blue hen Procrastinate and was bought for $2million
at the 2008 Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale by Keiran Moore Bloodstock on
behalf of Cressfield.
Cressfield will offer the current yearling from Personify, a filly by Fastnet Rock,
at Inglis Easter as Lot 177.