Go Racing focused on the UK this weekend
New Zealand-based syndicators Go Racing are gearing up for another big weekend of late nights and early mornings as they tune in to watch four of their Joseph O’Brien-trained charges race in stakes company across the United Kingdom.
“It’s a really exciting weekend for us,” Go Racing’s General Manager Matt Allnutt said. “We have four runners up in the UK and they’re all in stakes races.”
In recent years Go Racing has launched a global model of purchasing breeze up horses, in partnership with Stuart Boman of Blandford Bloodstock, to race with O’Brien in the United Kingdom. The aim is to target black type before transferring to the Australian stable of Champion trainer Chris Waller as older horses to target the lucrative prize money on offer there.
While the international racing may have them sleep deprived, Allnutt said it is proving fruitful.
“Buying horses up there and targeting black type before bringing them down to Australia is a massive part of our business now and we’re really getting some good traction with it now.
“A lot of credit must go to Stuart Boman from Blandford Bloodstock who does a lot of work for us, together we’ve developed a good formula for success and the horses we’ve bought up there are running well.
“We saw results of that last week with Etna Rosso third in the Gr.3 Kingston Town at Randwick and Soul of Spain winning the Gr.3 Newcastle Cup. They’re both products of this system and they’re going to the Gr.1 Metropolitan next weekend.
“We’re really pleased with the way our formula is working, it’s certainly having a lot of success and long may it continue.”
The first of this weekend’s stakes runners is Mojave River who takes her place in the £55,000 Listed Boyle Sports British EBF Rosemary Stakes (1609m) for fillies and mares at Newmarket in England at 12.15am NZ time, with Sean Levey onboard.
A winner two starts ago, Mojave River, who hasn’t raced since August 13, has a chance to add some valuable black type to her pedigree.
“She’s going well Joseph is more than happy with her,” Allnutt said. “She has drawn barrier 10 of 14 so she will need a bit of luck over the mile but she’s going well.
Meanwhile at Dundalk in Ireland, Omni Man contests the €45,000 Listed Bar One Racing Best Odds Guaranteed Diamond Stakes (2148m) at 6.15am NZ time with Dylan Browne McMonagle in the saddle.
“He really showed a devastating turn of foot when winning at Goodwood two starts ago, he’s trained on really well and it does look to be a nice race for him, he’s well in the market,” Allnutt said.
“He was scratched from racing at Leopardstown earlier this month due to track conditions and this race is on the Polytrack. How he handles that will go a long way to determining his chances, but he does like firm footing so we are optimistic that he will get away with it.
“He has drawn the outside barrier in the 14-horse field, and he will more than likely go back from there.”
At 1:37am on Monday morning NZ time Go Racing will be represented by Alibah and Zous and Me in the €60,000 Gr.3 Weld Park Stakes (1408m) at The Curragh in Ireland.
“Alibah has had two starts, she won on debut really impressively then finished third in the Listed Blenheim Stakes last start,” Allnutt said.
“She’s a really promising filly going well. She was unlucky last start, she settled a long way back but made up really good ground in the straight and was really powering to the line, another 30 of 40 yards and she would have won the race.
“Zous and Me has had one start for one win at Galway. She’s a promising daughter of Zoustar but obviously this is a big step up for her at just her second start, but she was pretty impressive at Galway she looks to be a really nice filly in the making.”
Meanwhile in Australia on Saturday, Go Racing will also be represented by another product of their dual hemisphere system, Tajanis in the A$251,000 Gr.3 Colin Stephen Handicap (2400m) and New Zealand-bred Maison Louis in the A$302,000 Gr.2 Shannon Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill.