Godolphin attention turns to youngsters

Sunday 1 March 2015, 5:56pm

Godolphin has introduced some new stars to Australian racing with imported winners Contributer and It's Somewhat and the attention now turns to home grown youngsters.

Contributer beat another former English horse, Hartnell, in the Chipping Norton Stakes on Saturday to give trainer John O'Shea his first Group One win for Sheikh Mohammed.

It's Somewhat added his name to the stakes list with his Group Three success in the Liverpool City Cup.

But it was two-year-old Exosphere, the third of the O'Shea-trained winners on the day, who underlined the Godolphin investment in breeding and racing.

A son of Lonhro, Exosphere heads to the $3.5 million Golden Slipper and all going well, will be joined some more home-breds after Saturday's Todman and Reisling Stakes.

Furnaces, a former favourite for the Slipper, runs in the Skyline, while another former favourite Ottoman runs in the Reisling for fillies along with stablemate Calaverite.

Furnaces was beaten by another Godolphin colt, Haptic, in the Lonhro Plate but O'Shea said he was confident he could bounce back.

"He went into his last start off a trial I wasn't happy with," O'Shea said.

"I was happier with his barrier trial the other day.

"Ottoman and Calaverite are very well and Haptic will run in a trial on Tuesday and go straight to the Slipper."

The reigning Slipper favourite is Headwater who is also expected to line up in the Todman alongside Vancouver who he deposed at the top of the market with his Silver Slipper win.

Trainer Gai Waterhouse opted to give Vancouver a barrier trial last week which he won convincingly.

The TAB has Headwater at $4.60 for the Slipper on March 21 with Exosphere and Vancouver sharing the second line at $5.50.

Furnaces, Haptic, Ottoman and Calaverite are all at $15.

– AAP

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