Winning races hasn’t always been a focus for talented four-year-old Ninth Legion.
But courtesy of a little human intervention, his appetite for competition has been reignited.
A promising youngster, Ninth Legion raced well against Pierro, All Too Hard and Epaulette as a three-year-old, including a fourth in the 2012 Group One Golden Rose.
But his focus had already begun to shift from the racetrack to the fillies and at the end of last autumn, owners Segenhoe Stud had him gelded.
“It’s a hard call because you’ve got a Fastnet Rock colt that’s showing a lot of promise and you either try to get a racehorse, or you end up with nothing,” co-trainer Michael Hawkes said.
“Everyone thinks they’ve got a Fastnet Rock colt so they can have a stallion but that doesn’t always work.
“To Segenhoe’s credit, we gelded the horse and this prep has been fantastic.”
Ninth Legion will line up for his fourth start as a gelding in Saturday’s Listed Festival Stakes at Rosehill.
He heads there in winning form after scoring over 1350 metres at the same track last start when he stalked the speed.
At his previous start he went down by the barest of margins to Tromso at Hawkesbury, a run which followed a solid first-up fifth to Famous Seamus in the Lightning Handicap.
While he is yet to win beyond 1400 metres, Hawkes has no qualms over Ninth Legion coping with 1500m on Saturday.
He finished fifth from a wide gate in the Group One TJ Smith (1600m) as a juvenile under then-trainer Anthony Cummings and was runner-up to Toydini in the Phar Lap Stakes over Saturday’s distance in the autumn.
“It’s probably right up his alley now he’s a bit older, a bit wiser and he’s wanting to be a racehorse,” Hawkes said.
Ninth Legion has drawn barrier four in the Festival Stakes which has attracted a full field of 15 plus three reserves.
The race is a traditional lead-up to the Villiers Stakes run at Randwick on December 14 and the main summer target for many of Saturday’s runners, including Ninth Legion.
One horse who won’t be pressing onto the feature mile is early Festival Stakes favourite Terravista.
Trainer Joe Pride confirmed the gelding would be spelled after Saturday with a view to the autumn.
