Sargent looking to future with Top Score

Friday 13 November 2015, 2:06pm

An unbeaten three-year-old, a team of untapped horses and a stable favourite can help John Sargent move on from a Melbourne Cup result that could have easily been so much better for the trainer.

More than a week after the Melbourne Cup, Sargent is still trying to reconcile how Gust Of Wind finished as close as she did in Australia's richest race.

"I thought it was a huge run by the Cup horse," he said.

"I mean, everything went against her. No speed, wide draw, knocked over, found herself in the worst lane in the middle in the straight and yet she stormed home for sixth."

Sargent has put Gust Of Wind in a paddock, safe in the knowledge that when she returns he doesn't have to look past the stable door in search of a 2016 Cup chance.

"She is a serious mare that horse," he said.

Sargent will now switch his focus to getting his two-year-olds up and running in time for the Magic Millions carnival in January.

But of more immediate concern will be how his 2013 VRC Oaks winner Kirramosa performs at Sandown and in Sydney Top Score is the early favourite to make it two wins from as many starts at Rosehill.

Kirramosa is over a stone bruise that forced her to miss the Matriarch Stakes and she will run in the Zipping Classic while Top Score will be trying to impress as an autumn horse.

Inexperience almost cost Top Score a first-up win at Warwick Farm and Sargent has taken no chances since, running the three-year-old in a barrier trial against older horses.

"I just thought he was a bit green that day he won so we thought we'd give him another chance to get it right," Sargent said.

"He'll probably just have the run on Saturday and go out for a break and if he goes well then we can put him in against some of the better three-year-olds in the autumn."

Top Score is bred on some of the best bloodlines on offer with his sire being champion stallion High Chaparral.

His dam is closely related to another leading sire in Fastnet Rock, ensuring he will be a valuable piece of horseflesh if can measure up in better races.

Sargent's Rosehill team will also include Queen Of Kariba, a Lonhro mare who won three metropolitan races in a row last season.

The ex-New Zealand trainer also welcomes back Centre Pivot, the winner of successive Rosehill races in August who is getting ready for the Magic Millions Cup.

– AAP

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