John Sadler was a relieved trainer when Sartorial Splendor showed a glimpse of the form that has won the sprinter six races.
After running fourth at Flemington last week, Sartorial Splendor is on the quick-up back-up at Sandown on Saturday to run in the Listed Bel Esprit Stakes (1000m).
If successful on Saturday, Sartorial Splendor will complete a clean sweep of victories on all four of Melbourne’s metropolitan tracks.
Sadler said a bad start to Sartorial Splendor’s campaign at Moonee Valley in March resulted in another below par performance at Geelong the following month before a change in training tactics turned the sprinter around.
“At his first start this time in, he has very bad feet, and he lost a shoe at the start,” Sadler said.
“It’s like us losing a thong and having to run on gravel, he just won’t let go.
“After that race it was like ‘I’ll just take it easy here’ and he put in another bad one at Geelong.
“We took him to the bullring to give him a change and he really took to it, and I was really pleased to see his form turnaround, although I wasn’t that surprised.”
Sadler said he had had a number of horses affected by dust in his stable.
He said while he and his staff had been working hard, the results were not flowing through, but that changed last week at Flemington with all his horses running well.
“Although we didn’t win a race at Flemington last week, we came home happy because all the horses ran really well,” Sadler said.
Sartorial Splendor has raced once at Sandown, finishing second at his third race start.
Sadler sees the drop back to 1000m as ideal for Sartorial Splendor on Saturday.
“There was nothing else for him for another three weeks, so that’s why he’s running on Saturday,” Sadler said.
“He did come through the race last week well and he has backed-up well before and performed quite well, so I don’t think that will be a problem, it will just be a matter of whether he is good enough.”
