Group 1 performer gets back on track
Group 1 performer Passing Shot heads back to the races on Saturday after his chances were shot at Waipa last start after a very hard run, where he was given no breather in front.
“Things didn’t go to plan and we couldn’t take him down to Christchurch for the Two Thousand Guineas on the strength of that performance. So we gave him a quiet couple of weeks while we decided how to go forward,” says trainer Stephen McKee.
That path is now clear with the smart Swiss Ace x Derrydane colt resuming at Tauranga in the Three year old Handicap over 1400m This Saturday. It will be a run that will tell the Go Racing with The Ace Syndicate exactly where he is, as he has to give at least three kilos to every horse in the race, so he will have to be very good to win. Jonathan Riddell, who rode him to fourth place in the Sires Produce as a two-year-old, is back on board.
Says Stephen, “He has worked well and is on his game so we’re expecting a good run although he has a big weight to carry given his second placing in the Group 3 Bonecrusher Stakes on 23 September.”
His next start is likely to either be the $50,000 Listed Trevor Eagle Memorial over 1500 metres at Ellerslie on 29 November or the Group 3 Wellington Stakes over 1600 metres on 28 November at Otaki worth $70,000, with his long term goal the Group 1 Levin Classic at Trentham on 17 January.