Written by Bren O'Brien
Trainer Gordon Richards' brilliant treble on Saturday at Morphettville delivered a nice little boost to South Australian farm Ducatoon Park, with its resident stallion Barbados securing his first stakes winner thanks to the impressive victory of Garner.
Garner is now a winner of four of his nine starts, having proven far too good for his rivals in the Listed Redelva S., winning by 2.2l to capture his first stakes win.
He is proving quite the flagbearer for Barbados, the son of Redoute's Choice and Virage De Fortune (Anabaa {USA}), who stands for $4400 (inc GST) at Peter and Valmai Toole's Ducatoon Park on the Yorke Peninsula.
Barbados | Standing at Ducatoon Park
Barbados has had 38 winners from 54 starters with Garner one of 16 metropolitan winners he has produced from his first four crops to the track.
Garner, named after West Indian cricket Joel Garner who was born in Barbados, was bred by Mark Sheahan from a mare he raced with Richards in Jaalippy (Foxhound {USA}), who was stakes placed and won six races.
The trainer told Sky Sports Radio that while Garner's win against his own age was impressive, he was unlikely to be tempted to send him to the G1 Goodwood and he would instead contest the G2 Euclase S. a week earlier.
"You never say never. It was always the plan to go Redelva into the Euclase, but you can never rule these things out. However, I got caught last year running Gytrash in The Goodwood and 3-year olds are not well off at the weights," he said.
"I probably wouldn't go down that path and I'd rather put him away for the spring."
The presence of his stablemate Gytrash (Lope De Vega {Ire}) in The Goodwood is another reason Richards won't be rushing Garner to the Group 1 sprint.
Gytrash, the G1 Black Caviar Lightning S. winner, will start a short-prices favourite in the feature Adelaide sprint after a 3l win over triple Group 1-winning filly Sunlight (Zoustar) in the G3 RN Irwin S. on Saturday.
"He just keeps getting better all the time and re-affirming my opinion of him," Richards said of Gytrash.
"That was a pretty good version of the Irwin S. I suppose other years we have had the Victorians come across but with Sunlight and a couple of locals like Kemalpasa and Parsifal, it was pretty handy field and he made them look second rate."
"That was a pretty good version of the Irwin S. It was pretty handy field and he made them look second rate." - Gordon Richards
Gytrash has now won eight of his 18 starts and over $1.1 million in prizemoney could be headed towards The Everest in the spring after he tackles The Goodwood.
Richards' treble also included a win with journeyman Roselli Sting (Casino Prince), who recorded win number nine at his 79th start in a 1600 metre BM86 H.
I'm All the Talk | Standing at Mungrup Stud
The other stallion to break his stakes duck on Saturday was Mungrup Stud's I'm All the Talk, who got his breakthrough thanks to Watch Me Dance in the G3 WA Sires' Produce S. at Ascot.
The Steven Wolfe-trained filly Watch Me Dance is one of two winners for the stallion, with the other winner, Em Tee Aye, finishing third in Saturday's race.
