Williams pair begin Championships campaign

Friday 11 January 2019, 12:01pm

The road to the Country Championships will start at Randwick for trainer Danny Williams when two of his leading chances resume in the opening race.

Williams has earmarked Aquittal and Highway SixtySix for the $500,000 Final on April 6 with both set to kick off their respective campaigns in Saturday's January Handicap (1000m).

"They're definitely heading that way provided everything stays well with them," Williams said.

Aquittal hasn't raced since last year's Country Championships Final in which he finished midfield behind Victorem.

He was put in work for a shot at the Kosciuszko in the spring but Williams wasn't happy with the horse and tipped him back out with The Championships in mind.

"He's a horse with a lot of ability but he's been very slow maturing and he's finally just starting to really furnish and put it all together," Williams said.

Highway Sixtysix, the winner of two of her seven starts, also resumes in the race, her first start since finishing fourth on a heavy track at Rosehill in September.

Like Aquittal, Williams expects the mare to take improvement from Saturday's race.

"She's a filly we've held a very high opinion of and she's a bit the same as Aquittal, she's going to appreciate the run," he said.

"She will find this a bit sharp, a bit short for her but the bigger track at Randwick, she should be running on quite strong."

In a busy afternoon, Williams will also saddle up three runners in the Highway Handicap (1600m) led by favourite Hemmerle while Green Sweet will represent the stable in the #Theraces Handicap (1500m).

Hemmerle was narrowly beaten second-up in a similar race at Warwick Farm last start and Williams expects him to be ready to peak.

"We've also got two runners at Kembla Grange so it's going to be a busy day for us," Williams said.

– 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 »