A young trainer with a young horse will be out to upstage some of racing’s biggest names at Randwick on Saturday.
For 30-year-old Newcastle-based conditioner Jeremy Smith and his two-year-old colt Just Boozey, this weekend’s Listed Breeders Plate (1000m) will represent a career-first.
Just Boozey will be making his debut while Smith will be taking on the might of training heavyweights the ilk of Gai Waterhouse, Peter Snowden, John Thompson and Paul Perry in a quest for stakes success.
Smith admits he’s nervous.
But the young trainer is also confident his `racing blood’ will serve him well.
“I’ve grown up with horses all my life. I was born into it,” Smith told AAP.
The father of two says he found his calling when he first sat aboard a horse while his father burnt tracks as a trotting driver.
He eventually diverged from his father’s craft, taking to the gallopers, and he got his own licence three years ago after spending time under trainer Jason Coyle.
Coyle will also saddle up a Breeders Plate runner in Va Pensiero.
Along with Just Boozey, Smith has eight other horses in work and is “always looking for more”.
But as a part-owner of the colt, his interests are closely invested in Just Boozey.
“When I started doing a bit of pace work with him, he just did everything right, everything we asked of him,” Smith said.
“We put him up against a few older horses in the gallops and he beat them, so I thought we might have something handy.
“He’s just getting better and better.”
However, Smith concedes that up against the likes of the Waterhouse-trained War – a $500,000 yearling purchase who is related to champion mare More Joyous – he will be happy if Just Boozey can finish in the first four.
His youngster’s barrier trial effort gave him cause for optimism as he finished third to the Breeders Plate favourite in a heat at Warwick Farm on September 24.
Long-term, Smith is looking towards next year’s autumn carnival with Just Boozey and hopes to target the Group One Sires’ Produce Stakes.
