Affirmation earns a shot at Sydney riches

Saturday 26 July 2014, 1:56pm

vastly improved Affirmation will travel to Sydney for Group races after an easy Caulfield win on Saturday.

Affirmation raced as colt when fifth to the subsequent Group One winner Peggy Jean on debut at Randwick in January, a performance that prompted trainer Tony McEvoy to geld the two-year-old.

The Not A Single Doubt youngster resumed with a win in Adelaide before maintaining his unbeaten record as a gelding with a strong win in the Grand Hotel Frankston Handicap (1400m).

Affirmation struggled to stay in touch with the front-runners but managed to find his rhythm when the pace slowed in the middle stages.

Mark Zahra eased Affirmation to the outside in the straight before his finishing sprint got him home comfortably over Club Star and Our Kaboom, convincing the jockey of a bright future.

"He's really smart. Definitely a Group horse," Zahra said.

"I was off the bit early then they slowed up and gave me a chance to travel.

"I went from flat out catching them to having them covered a long way out."

McEvoy's representative John Cornell said Affirmation would be on a float to Sydney on Sunday to prepare for the Group Three Up And Coming Stakes (1300m) at Randwick on August 23.

Cornell said McEvoy had not ruled out aiming Affirmation at the Group One Golden Rose at Rosehill on September 13.

The Mick Price-trained Berlutti firmed from $3 to start as a $2.80 favourite but weakened over the last 100m to finish fourth.

"He was just too keen in the run. I don't know if he goes for a break or drops back to 1200 (metres)," Berlutti's rider Craig Newitt 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 »