Birchley keen on Sydney test for juvenile

Wednesday 6 November 2013, 3:23pm

Liam Birchley's desire to give impressive debut winner Headwater Country a more serious test has resulted in the youngster being booked on a float to Sydney.

Keen to see how the two-year-old's win at the Gold Coast stacks up, Birchley will start Headwater Country in Saturday's Colin Pierce 100th Birthday Plate (1000m) at Randwick.

A lack of opportunity closer to home was also a factor in the interstate excursion with the only juvenile race at Eagle Farm on Saturday restricted to fillies.

"I'll probably give him a break after this but I'll be interested to see how he goes all the same," Birchley said.

"If he does go very well he'll have a bit of money in the bank and we might be able to come back for a nice race after Christmas."

A son of Snitzel, who sired last month's Cox Plate winner Shamus Award, Headwater Country started a well-backed favourite on debut at the Gold Coast.

He put a space on his rivals, scoring by almost seven lengths in a time of 52.31 seconds for the 900 metres.

"It was pretty professional. It probably wasn't a tough assignment as it turned out but he can only win," Birchley said.

"He did everything pretty well right. I think he's taken a bit of a step from there so hopefully, with the race experience, he will improve a little bit again."

Robert Thompson will partner Headwater Country, one of only two horses in the sprint with race experience.

The Garry Frazer-trained Sheer Style, also by Snitzel, showed promise at her only start when she led and was collared in the final strides by Bold Circle over 1100m at Rosehill.

Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Gai Waterhouse will have two runners at Randwick including barrier trial winner Pinchme in the juvenile event.

– 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 »