Hawkesbury trainer Daniel Robinson will be striving for a career milestone at Rosehill when he chases his first city win with Karmazone.
Robinson, regarded as an exceptional horseman, is delighted with the progress Karmazone has made through his spring campaign but the former British National Hunt apprentice rider indicated the horse would likely go to the paddock after Saturday’s assignment.
Karmazone, also nominated for Randwick’s Kensington meeting on Friday, has gone to another level this preparation with two midweek city placings and a last-start third to Accountabilty over 2000 metres at the Kembla Grange stand-alone meeting.
The five-year-old is one of 16 entries for a benchmark 78 Handicap over the same journey at Rosehill on Saturday.
“We are very happy with what the horse has done this time in,” Robinson said.
“He’s not the youngest horse but he’s lightly raced, extremely genuine and we’ve got him up to his right trip now.
“He’ll probably go for a break after Saturday then we might target a few races next time in.”
Karmazone will meet the Chris Waller-trained Accountability a kilogram better following their last-start encounter at Kembla, where Accountability was elevated to the winner’s stall following a successful protest over his stablemate Relucent.
Karmazone was a $27,000 Adelaide sale purchase by the stakes-winning Northern Meteor stallion Eurozone and he’s from the same family as Group One winner Akhenation.
Eurozone was bred by recently elected Hawkesbury Race Club chairman Dr Philip Chen and stands at Bellereve Stud near Canberra.
Robinson is the son of former leading UK jockey Philip Robinson who is the only English rider to win back-to-back Hong Kong jockeys’ premierships.
Karmazone carries the Robinsons’ navy blue and white banded silks, colours modelled on those worn by 1983 English 1000 Guineas winner Pebbles, who was the first major Group One winner for Philip Robinson.
Daniel Robinson, who was born in Hong Kong, is an accomplished horseman in his own right and is credited as the youngest winner of the ‘Way Of The Horse’ contest at Melbourne’s prestigious EQUITANA festival.
Robinson has been in Australia for 12 years and along with his wife Alexandra, the couple has built a successful breaking and pre-training business in the Hawkesbury area, which serves some of the biggest racing operations in Sydney.
“We only have a handful of horses in work as it’s mainly a hobby for us but we usually keep between fifty and eighty breakers and pre-trainers,” Robinson said.
