Sunlight to be set for G1 Lightning Stakes

Tuesday 20 November 2018, 2:55pm

Trainer Tony McEvoy has resisted any temptation to target another win at the rich Magic Millions race day at the Gold Coast with Sunlight and will wait for Group One sprints in Melbourne with the star filly.

Sunlight won the $2 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (1200m) at the Gold Coast in January and McEvoy had the option of a couple of races for the three-year-old on Millions day in January.

But after the filly's Group One win in the Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) at Flemington earlier this month, McEvoy has made the decision to give Sunlight a break and wait for Melbourne's premier sprints in February and March.

"Sunlight is at my farm in the Barossa and she's having a month off and then I will train her for the Lightning Stakes on the 16th of February," McEvoy said.

"That's her target.

"She's a Group One winner and it just didn't give her much time to get to the Magic Millions so I've decided to abort the Magic Millions, which is a bit sad because she's so good there.

"She can handle the heat, she handles that way of going and she's unbeaten on that track, but now that she's won that Group One it just changes her a little bit.

"And I'd like to set her for the Lightning and the Newmarket and then think about The Everest (October)."

The Lightning Stakes (1000m) and Newmarket Handicap (1200m) are both on the straight course at Flemington where Sunlight beat high-profile colts Zousain and Lean Mean Machine in the Coolmore.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »