Holyfield races into Guineas calculations

Saturday 29 August 2020, 4:42pm

On the back of a terrific juvenile season, trainers Ciaron Maher and David Eustace are emerging as major players in the better three-year-old races this spring.

The training partners made a clean sweep of the two age-restricted features at Rosehill on Saturday, winning the San Domenico Stakes (1100m) with Anders and the Ming Dynasty Quality (1400m) with Holyfield.

Both colts controlled their races from the front but while Anders is a speed horse, Maher expects Holyfield to come into his own over a mile and further.

The Group One Caulfield Guineas is Holyfield's immediate aim and Maher will weigh up whether to head there via the Golden Rose or lead-up races in Melbourne.

"I always thought the Guineas would be a good race for him," Maher said.

"We nomed him for the Cox Plate. That might be getting well ahead of myself but we will see how he runs in the Guineas because I did think he would run a bit further."

Holyfield was well beaten by North Pacific when he resumed in the Up And Coming Stakes but he was ridden upside down that day due to his big weight and the wet track.

Back on a dry Rosehill surface, Tim Clark took Holyfield ($10) to the front and he outclassed his rivals to beat Bazooka ($9.50) by 1-1/4 lengths with Overlord ($2.60 fav) running on late to grab third.

"Tim rode him very well. He was keen to get to the front and control it," Maher said.

"He was always going to improve into his three-year-old year. He was quite a raw two-year-old."

The stellar day out enjoyed by Maher and Eustace has coincided with the appointment of Jack Bruce, a former racing manager for Chris Waller, to head up their Sydney stable.

Bruce has only been in the job for a week and has proven to be a lucky charm.

"Jack has had a big influence in seven days. It will be nice to see what he can do in a month," Maher 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 »