It is not every day a French Group One placegetter lines up in an Eagle Farm class three Plate.
Wren’s Day, runner-up to Cracksman in the weight-for-age Group One Prix Ganay at Longchamp in April 2018 at only his fifth start, resumes in Brisbane on Saturday for new trainer Cody Morgan.
After the Prix Ganay, Wren’s Day had one more start in France before transferring from Andre Fabre to James Cummings.
However, the move produced limited success with Wren’s Day’s only Australian victories coming in a class one race in Canberra and a class six event at Ipswich before he left the Godolphin yard.
The gelding was knocked down to Australian Bloodstock for $140,000 at last year’s Magic Millions national racehorse sale at the Gold Coast and made his way to Morgan’s stables at Tamworth.
Morgan has enjoyed immense success buying ex-Godolphin horses through the Magic Millions sales ring.
In recent years his purchases have included stable star Ligulate, who was bought for $34,000 in 2019 and has banked more than $380,000 so far for his new connections.
While Morgan acknowledges the 1200 metres on Saturday is short of Wren’s Day’s preferred distance, he believes the seven-year-old will be competitive.
“He’s drawn a bit sticky but he’s 30 benchmark points above some of those horses and claiming three on him hopefully gives him every chance to run well,” Morgan said.
“His trials have been sharp enough at 1000 metres and if he’s only just getting beaten by a horse like Soxagon at 1350 metres last time in, then he should be competitive enough over 1200 metres first up.”
Wren’s Day has pleased Morgan in three lead-up barrier trials which have been in contrast to his sluggish efforts in trackwork.
“Ligulate will run the hands off a clock in trackwork but Wren’s Day hasn’t shown us that, although when we have trialled him he’s been pretty competitive and he’s up to the mark for Saturday,” he said.
Australian Bloodstock will also be represented in the race by another import, the Kris Less-trained Ventura Ocean.
At his last appearance at England’s Newmarket track in June, Ventura Ocean finished second over 1408 metres with 2018 Doomben Cup winner Comin’ Through in third place.
