The colts and the fillies divisions of the final lead-up races to next Saturday’s Magic Millions 2yo Classic delivered impressive outcomes as race experience paid off for Shiki and Itchintogo in their victories.
The Tony Gollan-trained Itchintogo ($1.60F) won the Aquis Gold Nugget (1100m) for colts and geldings by an eye-catching 4½-length margin while the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Shiki ($3.40) put her positive progression to good use winning the Gold Pearl (1100m) for fillies.
Itchintogo sits at $11 in the Magic Millions 2yo Classic (1200m) market while Shiki is the $6 second favourite to Warwoven at $2.
“I wanted to have him in this after he won the other day,” Gollan said with reference to the win at Doomben on December 6.
“Bringing him here gets that freshness off him then we’ll give him an easy week and give ourselves a chance to give it a shake next week.”
“A lot of horses have won the week before then won the race (2yo Classic). The stats on the Saturday are just as good.
While both stables are eyeing the quick back-up, Adrian Bott noted how Shiki has raised her game under careful training after her fourth placing at Randwick over 1000-metres on December 20.
“She did a few things wrong first-up,” Bott said.
“We know she’s explosive and has a good turn-of-foot but we just had to harness it and do it the right way which is obviously important going into the big grand final next week.
“She had a good couple of weeks and arrived really well. This week, she really started to relax and did what we wanted to see in her work.
“We had this particular set-up in mind for her which has been quite successful. We wanted her to have a look at the track here.
“She’ll potter around for the week and hopefully she’ll be hopefully she’ll be nice and fresh for next week.”
Itchintogo, a son of Sun City, was a $60,000 buy at the 2025 Gold Coast Yearling Sale in 2025 while Shiki was bought for $420,000.