David Payne will bid to continue the theme of his successful season when he heads to the penultimate Sydney meeting of the 2013-14 term with two runners.
The Rosehill trainer is firmly entrenched among Sydney’s top 10 with stable earnings of more than $3.2 million since August 1 last year.
Among the highlights were Criterion’s brace of Group One wins in the Rosehill Guineas and Australian Derby, stamping the horse as one of racing’s next generation of stars.
But Sydneysiders won’t see much of the rising four-year-old this spring with Criterion set to have just one local start before continuing his Cox Plate build up in Melbourne.
“He will run in the Warwick Stakes and then he’ll go down to Melbourne,” Payne said of Criterion, who finished third in a Rosehill barrier trial this week.
Payne won’t be without a Group One focus in Sydney, nominating the untapped Bold Circle as a horse with the potential to rise through the grades.
The horse finished third on debut in the Breeders’ Plate and relegated subsequent Magic Millions winner Unencumbered to third when victorious at his only other start in October.
Payne confirmed Bold Circle would tackle the better three-year-old races with a view to a start in the Golden Rose.
“He will most probably run in the San Domenico or the Rosebud first-up,” Payne said.
“I’m not going to trial him, he will go straight to the races.”
There is no such fanfare surrounding the trainer’s two runners at Saturday’s Randwick-Kensington meeting but Foreign Prince and Dowdstown Charlie are both expected to perform admirably when they clash in the Inglis Bonus Hcp (1400m).
Payne says Foreign Prince has taken significant improvement from an unplaced first-up run at Rosehill earlier this month while Dowdstown Charlie has a new-found consistency this campaign.
“Foreign Prince has improved a lot on his first run. It was 1200 (metres) and it was too short but he’s got a good barrier and he’ll be competitive,” Payne said.
“Dowdstown Charlie has been very honest this prep and he’ll be thereabouts for sure.
“He needs a bit of rain. He’s running well on the firm going but he is better on the wet.”
