Winning a Scone Cup would confirm the natural talent of Lightinthenite but it is unlikely to change trainer John O’Shea’s plans for the promising galloper.
Lightinthenite has shown in nine starts he has the speed to make the grade as a sprinter-miler, winning five races.
He did nothing to sway opinion with a first-up win at Randwick, ensuring he will be one of the favourites to make a stakes breakthrough in the $180,000 Scone Cup over 1600m.
But Randwick-based O’Shea, fresh from his Group One BTC Cup triumph with Sea Siren, says he is looking beyond Friday’s rich country race.
As a son of Galileo, the English and Irish Derby winner who now stands exclusively in Ireland after years of shuttling to Australia, Lightinthenite has enough stamina in his blood to make O’Shea think he could be training a stayer with a serious future.
“I really think his best distance will be a mile-and-a-half (2400m),” O’Shea said.
O’Shea is likely to test his theory about the four-year-old sooner rather than later with the Scone Cup figuring as an ideal platform race towards something bigger during the Brisbane winter carnival.
Asked if the 2400-metre Brisbane Cup next month was a likely target race, O’Shea said: “It could very well be.”
James McDonald will have the Scone Cup ride after the in-demand jockey partnered Lightinthenite to his stylish return win last month.
Lightinthenite accounted for subsequent stakes winner Skyerush in the April 28 Randwick race, making him attractively weighted on the 54kg limit at Scone.
“The form out of his first-up win has been outstanding and he’s done very well since,” O’Shea said.
There are 24 nominations for the Scone Cup with another Randwick-trained galloper Fast Clip heading the weights on 59kg.
The Doncaster Prelude winner has 1.5kg more than last-start Rowley Mile winner Star Of Octagonal.
Miss Keepsake, the Joe Pride-trained mare who was Group One-placed behind More Joyous two starts ago, has 56kg.
Darley trainer Peter Snowden, who started his career in the NSW Hunter Valley, has Raspberries (55.5kg) and Divorces (55kg) entered.
Snowden won his hometown cup for the first time last year when Dysphonia produced a whirlwind finish.
