Having ticked the first and second boxes in a three-part plan, emerging colt Southend will be given an opportunity to make it a clean-sweep in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes.
After taking out the Paul Perry (1300m) at Newcastle on debut, Southend came to Rosehill on Saturday and added the Group 3 Baillieu (1400m) to earn himself a shot at a Championships appearance.
“That has always been the plan. To go to Newcastle, here today, then if he looks as though he’s had enough we’ll stop him, and if not he’ll go to the Champagne in three weeks,” co-trainer Gerald Ryan said.
“He’s a very good horse, I think.”
Southend is by former top English sprinter-miler Palace Pier, who won five Group 1 races, out of a So You Think three-quarter sister to Ryan’s former smart galloper Peltzer.
However, it wasn’t that connection that attracted Ryan and training partner Sterling Alexiou to Southend at the yearling sales.
“That wasn’t the reason I bought him,” Ryan said.
“The week before the sales, Sterling had gone home for a few days and when he came back I said, ‘I reckon I found one for you’. I took him down to Mill Park (Stud’s barn), there were five horses there we looked at, and I never told him which one it was.
“This horse came out and Sterling, goes, ‘he’s a classic’ and I said, ‘I know. This is the one I want you to like’.”
Ridden by Dylan Gibbons, Southend ($7.50) chimed into the race halfway up the straight and surged clear to down Persian Wonder ($2.90 fav) by 1-1/4 lengths with Nomadic ($81) another nose back in third.
Gibbons said Southend was winning on raw ability alone and would be a force once he learned his craft.
“The thing I loved most is that last furlong, he was just looking for some challengers. God help him when he learns what his job is,” Gibbons said.
“I’m sure he will eat up and bounce out of the run, and we’ll have a crack at the big one (Champagne Stakes). If he can take any natural improvement again, it’s scary to see where he can get to.”
