Santa Ana Lane to resume in The Heath

Sunday 26 August 2018, 4:12pm

Connections of Santa Ana Lane will rely on a proven form reference for Santa Ana Lane in a bid to get the multiple Group One-winning sprinter to The Everest in peak condition.

Santa Ana Lane is set to begin his Everest campaign in Saturday's Group Three The Heath at Caulfield (1100m), the first of two planned lead-up races before the $13 million Everest (1200m) at Randwick on October 13.

The Anthony Freedman-trained Santa Ana Lane won the Group One Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (1400m) at his third run back from a break last spring, while in the autumn he won the Group One Goodwood (1200m) in Adelaide third-up.

Santa Ana Lane capped his 2017/18 season with a third Group One win in the Stradbroke Handicap (1350m) in Brisbane in June and was later secured by Inglis to run in its Everest slot.

The six-year-old gelding has had two barrier trials at Cranbourne this month including last Tuesday when he finished a close third to fellow Everest-bound stablemate Shoals.

"He's in really good order," Freedman's son and assistant trainer, Sam Freedman, said.

"His trial was good the other day. He'll run well but he'll certainly come on from the run.

"He's not screwed down for it. His target is third-up."

Freedman believes Santa Ana Lane, to be ridden by Ben Melham on Saturday, has come back as well as ever in encouraging signs for the spring.

"He's working and trialling as well as he always has," he said.

A number of confirmed Everest contenders are expected to race on Saturday in Sydney and Melbourne.

Defending champion Redzel is scheduled to begin his campaign in The Concorde Stakes at Randwick, a race also slated for the return of Invincible Star.

Last year's Everest runner-up Vega Magic will be chasing back-to-back Memsie Stakes wins at Caulfield on Saturday.

Freedman said Shoals would begin her spring campaign in the McEwen Stakes at Moonee Valley on Saturday week.

Santa Ana Lane's other Everest lead-up race is yet to be locked in.

– 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 »