Epic Rant gives Spendthrift next 2YO hope

Monday 7 November 2016, 5:54pm

With American billionaire B Wayne Hughes enjoying another Breeders' Cup triumph, Epic Rant is set is to be the next horse flying Spendthrift's flag in Australia.

Beholder carried Hughes' colours to victory in the Breeders' Cup Distaff on Saturday morning Australian time.

Beholder defeated the previously unbeaten Songbird to claim her 11th and final Group One victory before being retired to Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky where she will be served by Uncle Mo.

One week later, Hughes's increasing footprint in Australian racing looks set to expand when the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Epic Rant makes his debut in the two-year-old handicap (1100m) at Rosehill on Saturday.

Hughes has tasted Australian stakes success with the Hawkes Racing-trained Swear who won the Group Three Ming Dynasty Quality and finished fifth in the Victoria Derby on October 29.

The majority of Hughes-owned horses are trained by the Hawkes including last-start winner Cana who is entered in Saturday's 1300m benchmark handicap at Rosehill.

But the entrepreneur has had links to Waterhouse, buying Hampton Court who she trained and Hughes now stands at his Spendthrift's stud farm in Victoria.

And Waterhouse and Bott train three-year-old colt Paradise Cove who has failed to fire in two provincial starts.

Stablemate Epic Rant was a $500,000 yearling at the Magic Millions sale in January.

"He's a really sharp precocious two-year-old and we like what we're seeing to date from him," Bott told AAP.

"He just keeps improving."

Bott said the Snitzel colt's winning trial at Warwick Farm over 800m on Friday had impressed the stable in what was his second public outing.

"In his first trial he did a couple of things wrong but he showed good improvement from that and we like the direction he's heading in," Bott said.

"He's one that's shown early ability and no doubt he will continue to improve.

"Hopefully he can put his best foot forward on Saturday."

– 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 »