Ridgewood Drive chasing second city win

Tuesday 8 January 2019, 2:24pm

Derby aspirations for Ridgewood Drive are likely to become clearer after the lightly raced gelding chases a second city win in quick succession.

The Anthony Freedman-trained Ridgewood Drive, a half-brother to 2014 Queensland Derby winner Sonntag, scored a maiden win at his second career start at Sandown and is set to back up a week later in Wednesday's Ladbrokes Multiverse Handicap (1600m) at Caulfield.

"We haven't done a lot with him between runs. He's pretty fit now and he will appreciate the extra distance tomorrow," Freedman's racing manager, Brad Taylor, said.

"He has got a little bit of an awkward barrier (seven) but he puts himself near enough to the speed so if he can get a nice enough run in behind them he looks a nice chance.

"He's a half-brother to a Derby winner so he's certainly going to appreciate getting up over a little bit further and once he gets up to 2000 metres and further you are going to probably see an even better horse."

Taylor said the plan was to give Ridgewood Drive a freshen-up after Wednesday before setting the gelding on a Derby path.

"I don't know what Derby yet but there are plenty of options through the autumn and into winter," he said.

"There's South Australia and Queensland and all of them will be considered. We'll get through tomorrow first, give him a short break and then we can make a bit of a plan."

Wednesday's race is an opportunity to boost the gelding's rating and prize money to open up options later in the season.

Taylor said the stable's multiple Group One winners Santa Ana Lane and Shoals had both returned to work in good order.

"They spelled really well and they had their first gallops back this week," he said.

He said race plans had yet to be locked in but options for Santa Ana Lane included a trip to Dubai.

– 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 »