Chris Waller has fired an early Golden Slipper salvo, producing stunningly related colt Hidrix for an emphatic debut win at Rosehill as favourite Incognito disappointed.
Incognito had been equal favourite for the world’s richest two-year-old race but battled in the straight to finish fifth, jockey Tommy Berry reporting the youngster appeared to have a post-race issue.
“He made a gargling noise pulling up, so he’s obviously flicked his palate,” Berry said.
“The team at home can work out how they fix that.”
Bookmakers reacted by winding Incognito out to $26 for the Golden Slipper (1200m) as Hidrix replaced him at the top of markets, sitting alongside the Bjorn Baker-trained Warwoven as $8 equal favourites.
Waller trained the quinella with Confederation ($3.40) finishing 1-3/4 lengths behind Hidrix ($13) in second, leader Eviction Notice ($4.80) holding down third a further long head back.
The winner is a full brother to star filly Apocalyptic and cost $1.7 million as a yearling.
While Waller wasn’t necessarily sold on his grey colouring, he liked everything else.
“He was out of the Coolmore draft and by Extreme Choice. He ticked all the boxes,” Waller said.
“The only thing we weren’t sure about was the colour, but we’ve got nothing to worry about, have we.
“We have given him two educational trials. We haven’t asked him to do anything. What you saw today is more than what I’ve seen.”
Waller will plot a path towards the Golden Slipper, run on March 21, for the winner and runner-up and says the exciting part is that neither has been wound up.
“The beauty of our horses is you know they’re still on the up. They will have a ceiling as well, but hopefully we don’t find that ceiling until Slipper day,” he said.
Winning jockey Zac Lloyd was taken by the improvement Hidrix had shown from each trial to race day and said the youngster always travelled well in the run.
“He’s just bombproof. He does everything right,” Lloyd said.
“He was extremely push-button.”
Incognito’s trainer Michael Freedman later reported to stewards the horse would be scoped on return to the stables but echoed Berry’s thoughts he had an issue with his palate.
However, he remained hopeful he could rectify the problem quickly and indicated the colt remained on track to run again in three weeks.
