JT saddles up for fun
NRL great Johnathan Thurston will try to take his rugby league success to the racetrack with a two-yearold colt he part-owns on the path to the Magic Millions on the Gold Coast.
The Australian and Queensland representative and North Queensland Cowboys captain has bought into an unraced juv- enile trained by Kent Fleming on the Gold Coast.
Others in the syndicate include Thurston’s Cowboys and Maroons teammate Gavin Cooper and prominent owner Frank Cook, who has raced Group 1 winners such as Preferment, Foreteller and Moriarty.
Fleming joked the unnamed horse may need to have a cowboy-themed name and hoped Thurston’s success on the field was a good omen.
Fleming said he had been impressed by the colt who did a light preparation in the early stages of the year and has just come back from a three-month spell.
“He is a beautiful looking colt and we haven’t had any issues with him,” Fleming said.
“He is a big strong boy and the best thing about him is that he has got a fan- tastic temperament. Nothing seems to bother him.
“He has got a great mentality, attitude and he is a big, strong and athletic type of horse with a very fluent action on him.”
A son of Bowness Stud shuttle stallion Bullet Train and Encosta de Lago mare Kinder Surprise, the colt was bought for $150,000 at the Magic Millions sale on the Gold Coast this year.
He will be aimed at the $2 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (1200m) in January.
Bullet Train, a threequarter brother to unbeaten British great Frankel, had his first winner as a sire last weekend when Difamante won at Gulfstream Park in Florida in the US.
Fleming is syndicating the two-year-old who will be paraded for prospective co-owners at the TrainTech stables tomorrow.