Elixir to reappear in the autumn
Cambridge trainer Tony Pike acknowledged that Prized Icon was too good for his gelding Sacred Elixir in Saturday’s Victoria Derby at Flemington.
But defeat in the classic took nothing away from his opinion of the son of Windsor Park Stud sire Pour Moi who ran second to Prized Icon and Sydney in the autumn is now in his sights.
Highlights of Sacred Elixir’s Melbourne spring campaign under the guidance of Pike’s hard working stable foreman Kade Ormsby, were wins in the Caulfield Guineas Prelude and the Moonee Valley Vase.
Sacred Elixir also won the J J Atkins Stakes at Eagle Farm in June and has won around $1 million in stakes.
Pike said Sacred Elixir, who was ridden by Zac Purton, would bounce back for a Sydney autumn campaign with the New Zealand Derby a possibility beforehand.
‘‘He possibly over-raced a couple of times in the run but not too badly,’’ he said.
‘‘He might have got there far too soon but Zac might have been worried about getting held up by the horse coming around him three-deep.
‘‘He had a decent old bumping duel with it on the corner, and both him and Swear probably landed in front together at the top of the straight and he had to sit and wait for a fair while.
‘‘But he’s probably better just coming into it the last couple of hundred metres.’’
‘‘We gave it our best shot and he went a super race,’’ he said.
He took no harm from the race and was bright on Sunday morning and bouncing around like he hadn’t been to the races.
Ormsby and Sacred Elixir will return to New Zealand for a well earned break before the horse returns to work.
The second Kiwi in the race was Highlad ridden by Craig Williams.
Trainers Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman advised stewards he would be ridden forward but he began began awkwardly, shifted out and made contact with Wine Bush and settled beyond mid-field.
Williams reported the colt appeared to resent the crossover noseband and as a result failed to travel well although he made ground from the rear for eighth.
‘‘He ran the third fastest last 600 and picked up A$30,000 so it wasn’t all bad,’’ Baker said. ‘‘He will head home this week with La Luna Rossa and Saracino and will make up into a lovely horse for the autumn. He’s a good horse but just had no luck on this trip - it’s the way it goes sometimes.’’
A filly bred in New Zealand, sold at Karaka before being resold in Sydney, trained in Melbourne and well travelled around Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne to ply her trade, became the first 3-year-old to win the Group I Myer Classic. On Flemington’s big day she provided Mornington trainer Shane Nichols with his first Group I winner.
She was bought by Kingstar Farm proprietor and Newgate Farm shareholder Matthew Sandblom at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale for A$40,000 after the Hawkins family had pinhooked her as a weanling from Karaka for $12,000. At the same mixed sale her dam Star Band was sold in foal to Shocking for $2,000 to Pukekohe hobby breeder Chrissy Wilkinson. Nichols bought the Shocking filly and Wilkinson has retained a Thewayyouare filly and is awaiting the birth of an Iffraaj foal.