Songman in Sydney to sing for supper

FORMER top Tasmanian three-yearold galloper Mister Songman makes his Sydney debut today for trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott for what connections are hoping will be the start of a successful summer campaign.

Mister Songman was outstanding in his early three-year-old campaign winning four of his first five starts before finishing fifth in the $100,000 Tasmanian Guineas over 1600m in Hobart in early January. Mister Songman was bred by the late Dr John Burke and is raced by his children John and Elizabeth Burke, who will both be trackside to see the grey gelding make his interstate debut.

“Elizabeth and I are quite excited and Gai and Adrian are quietly confident he will do well,” John Burke said as he was about to board a flight to Sydney.

“The plan is to give him three starts in Sydney to see if he is up to the class up here and, if not, send him home to Tasmania and back to Royston Carr.”

An offer to buy the gelding for an undisclosed sum was circumvented when an anomaly showed up in a scan on his legs, which was refuted as being nonsensical by his former trainer Carr.

After finishing second to Uber Ed in the 3YO Classic on Launceston Cup day Mister Songman was spelled and soon after his owners opted to send the gelding to Sydney.

Mister Songman will line up in race two at Rosehill today, a benchmark 78 handicap over 1100m in which he has drawn barrier eight.

He goes into the race on the back of two trials of which the first was four weeks ago at Rosehill and it resulted in a very impressive win over 900m.