Gary Portelli may bypass next month’s Villiers Stakes and look at a bigger prize during the autumn carnival after watching stable star Somepin Anypin race to another dominant win in the Hawkesbury Gold Cup.
Somepin Anypin, who broke the 1400m track record at Rosehill last month and is described as potentially the best horse Portelli has trained, passed his first challenge at 1600m with an emphatic four-length all-the-way win in Thursday’s $150,000 Group Three feature.
The four-year-old gelding, who started the $1.60 favourite, defeated the Guy Walter-trained Willy Jimmy ($4.60) who struck trouble shortly after the start and did a great job to come from the tail of the field for second.
Renewed Vitality ($12) was another head away third.
Portelli said he would talk to the owners in the next few days to decide whether to progress to the Group Two Villiers (1600m) or tip Somepin Anypin out with the view to target the Group One Doncaster Mile (1600m) in the autumn.
“Potentially he could be the best horse I have had,” Portelli said.
“He can stretch his distances – he sprints and then he can get up to a mile (1600m). Them sort of horses you can have a lot of fun with.
“Hopefully it’s all ahead of him. I think he’s still developing and still learning and the funny thing about him is that he doesn’t look to be going fast.
“When he opens up in the straight he just lengthens stride and good horses come off the bridle.”
The Villiers is run at Warwick Farm on December 17 and Portelli admitted it might be hard to keep Somepin Anypin up to a peak for that long.
“We’ll have a talk with all the boys when the dust settles,” the trainer said.
“A few of them I think want to go to the Villiers and I’m happy to go with which way they want to go.
“But my option would be to go for a break and come back for the carnival, but that’s up to the owners.”
Winning jockey Jim Cassidy also believes the gelding can develop into a Doncaster horse.
“I’ve always said I thought he was a Doncaster horse, that he could turn into one,” Cassidy said.
Rod Quinn said Willy Jimmy “got slammed” at the start and rated it a “huge effort” to finish where he did.
AAP TURF
