God's In Him, Messene lead Hawkes charge

Friday 20 November 2015, 3:12pm

A Rosehill race designed as a springboard into the summer carnival for one horse is shaping as a career crossroads for his stablemate.

God's In Him, early favourite for the Schweppes Farewells Jimmy Cassidy Handicap, returns from a freshen-up on Saturday ahead of a campaign that will encompass the Villiers Stakes and Magic Millions carnival at the Gold Coast.

The winner of five of his 12 starts, God's In Him has co-trainer Michael Hawkes cautious about the burden of 61kg, but he has no such reservations about the horse's talent.

"The weight is the only factor but it is what it is," Hawkes said.

"He's a winner and he puts himself in the right spot."

Mecir hasn't been a winner for the stable since his Newcastle Newmarket success in the autumn of last year.

He returns to Sydney after a three-start Melbourne spring campaign where his best result was a sixth in a Listed race at Caulfield.

Hawkes says the seven-year-old needs to lift.

"To be fair, he doesn't really like the Melbourne way of going, or wet tracks," Hawkes said.

"He needs to do something, but once again, the weight hurts him."

Lightly raced sprinter Le Cordon Bleu resumes in the Chris Waller Racing Farewells Jim Cassidy Handicap while the stable will also saddle up Binary in the final event.

But it is a horse racing on the other side of the country that has put a spring in Hawkes' step.

Fourth to subsequent Cox Plate winner Winx in the Epsom Handicap, Messene closed strongly once he found clear running in a Group Three race at Flemington last start.

It is form Hawkes figures is good enough to give Messene a genuine chance in Saturday's $1 million Railway Stakes in Perth.

"He hasn't won for a very long time but he's probably in career-best form," Hawkes said.

"The horse has travelled well and I've got a little twinkle in my eye that he's going to perform at his best."

– 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 »