Post Race Xtra News
2 May, 2016
Good horses draw crowds and a huge contingent of people filled vantage points for a look at three-year-old colt Xtravagant (Pentire) prior to his win in the Cambridge Breeders' Stakes (Gr. 3, 1200m) on April 30 at Te Rapa.
Aware of his beauty and class, Xtravagant was cool, calm and collected when prancing around the parade ring, with handlers Kerry Jones and Daniel Miller, and showed he was focussed and on the job only a few strides into his preliminary under jockey Matt Cameron.
He probably needed to show racing aficionados another win, in lieu of his previous run in the Australian Guineas (Gr. 1, 1600m) at Flemington, where he was collared late after setting too strong a tempo, allowing the first and second horses to come from 13th and 15th respectively. We need to remember however that many favoured runners finished behind him with noted bookmaker advising the rail was “offâ€. However his 8.5 length victory of the 2000 Guineas (Gr. 1, 1600m), in race record time (1:33.5), at Riccarton, and subsequent eight-length annihilation of the best sprinters in the land, under weight-for-conditions, in the NRM Sprint (Gr. 1, 1400m) at Te Rapa, were performances etched in the memory bank forever and surely the most exciting seen by any three-year-old this season in New Zealand.
Although the writer was unable to be on course for the 2000 Guineas, he was told in conversation by a long time race goer that: “a cold shiver went through me and I had goose bumps watching thatâ€.
Post race comments from Te Rapa:
Co-trainer Stephen Autridge: “We all know how good he is; he's the best we've got this year. They took us on, but we had a fair idea they were going to so I said to Matt (Cameron) today is the day we might have to change plan, and why not? It's worked out great and we know he can do it (take a sit) from now on, anyway.
“If there was ever a doubt of him going a mile, or further, being able to do that now then it shouldn't be a problem.
“Whatever we do now will be one-hundred percent about making him into a stallion.
“It makes us so proud to be able to train a horse like ‘Blake'. Our job is to deliver him here as good as we can, keep him in winning form, and we hope we can keep him going the way he's going now and that everyone loves and adores him like we do. And that we can make him into a champion stallion.
Matt Cameron: “Me and Stevie (Autridge) had a chat before the race and said that it is probably the race to take a sit. He jumped as well as he normally does, but I elected to take to sit and it was like he was saying ‘excuse me; I don't get crossed in the first two hundred metres'. But this time he did, and he dropped the bit nicely, cruised, got clear air across the top to cruise into it and sprinted away nicely.
“We've only taught him to be a leader, and front runner, but now if we're going to take on the big guns, especially in Australia, he's got to learn sooner or later and this was the race to do it.
“He got a bit tired the last bit, had a bit of a puff, and he'll improve another ten lengths on that, so it was a pretty good effort for a horse like him going only twelve hundred (metres).
Co-trainer Jamie Richards: “He ate well last night, was very bright this morning and we're pretty happy with how he pulled up. As David (Ellis) said, we'll have a talk in the next couple of days and make some plans on where we go to from here. But, obviously, Brisbane, or Melbourne in the spring are the two options at this stage.
