Scott Collings is excited about where Mogo Magic might take those associated with the Duporth gelding, but he won’t let that impact his first-up ambitions with his stable star this weekend.
The unbeaten three-year-old has been nominated for two races at Rosehill, the benchmark 72 for three-year-olds over 1100m and the Class 3 Highway over the same distance, with the Goulburn horseman leaning towards running in the latter.
Flying machine Passeggiata and in-form pair Amnesty and Deep Expectation are among the others nominated for the three-year-old event, which helped convince Collings the Highway might be the smarter play this weekend.
“He’s still eligible for a Highway, so we’re probably silly not to go that way,” he said.
Mogo Magic is already a Highway winner, proving too speedy for his Class 2 rivals over 1000m at Randwick on February 25.
His only two other starts produced a 6-3/4-length debut win at the Sapphire Coast and a 3-1/2-length win at Wagga in November.
The longest of those races was the 1065m Wagga event and while he rises to 1100m this weekend, Collings is confident he will win races over further than that later in his career.
“I’d like to think this preparation we can get him to 1200,” he said.
“He doesn’t seem to overrace in his races, in the last Highway he got a little bit strong mid-race, but normally he doesn’t seem to overrace, so I can’t see why he won’t get 1200 metres.”
Collings has one particular 1200m race in mind with the $2 million The Kosciuszko, which is restricted to country-based gallopers, to be run on October 14.
“There’s had been a little bit of Kosciouszko talk there early in the piece but we’ve got to keep putting the wins on the board to get there,” Collings said.
“We’ll get through this Saturday first and then work out what we’ll be doing from thereon.
“But we’re very excited how far he’s going to take us. His record speaks for itself, really.”
