By Bren O'Brien
A smart debut win by one-time $300,000 yearling National Choice (Snitzel) at Geelong has trainers Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr contemplating spring targets for the 2-year-old colt.
Sat back off a decent tempo over 1212 metres by Damien Oliver, National Choice delivered a strong finish to win impressively by 1.5l in his first racetrack appearance.
Kent Jnr was rapt with how the race panned out for a horse that he and Price have always had a strong opinion of.
"It was pretty evident that the horse will get better over further and with experience. He required a bit of work prior to the corner. Things worked out pretty well there, he had a three-wide cart into it on the back of a handy one. It's nice to get that win today for the owners," the co-trainer said.
"What we like about the horse is that he's got a bit of strength at the end of his work. He worked well heading into this and was strong at the end and that gave us confidence going into this race at 1200. It was a perfect race for him on debut."
"It was pretty evident that the horse will get better over further and with experience." - Michael Kent Jnr
National Choice was purchased from the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale by Price on behalf of a syndicate of owners, with his breeder, Dorrington Farm's Robert Crabtree, maintaining a significant interest. The colt races in his red and white colours.
He is out of Group 3-winning filly My Sabeel (Savabeel), who hails from the extended family of Group 1 winner Naturalism (NZ) (Palace Music {USA}), and is creating quite a buzz at Price and Kent Jnr's Caulfield stables.
National Choice was a $300,000 Inglis Premier purchase
"I think he's one of our nicer ones. He still looks awfully immature this horse. He hasn't got a huge body to him yet and he's going the develop a lot. lt'll be up to the boss if he wants to go another step and look towards the spring. He’ll be definitely better as a 3-year old," Kent Jnr said.
"He looks like he’ll get to some sort of level."
Daisy Cakes (Wandjina), a homebred filly for Nick Wakim's Hilldene Farm, finished second, 1.5l adrift, with Rock The Ring (Reward For Effort) third.
Crabtree wasn't the only significant Victorian breeder to taste 2-year-old success on the day with Eddie Hirsch celebrating a win of Fender Bender (Street Boss {USA}) in the earlier race over the 1212 metres.
Fender Bender, trained by John Salanitri, was backing up off his 12th in the VOBIS Gold Showdown last week at Caulfield and showed plenty of fight under Jordan Childs to defeat Apsara (Sepoy) and Nicolini Vito (Nicconi).
Bred and retained by Hirsch, Fender Bender is the sixth winner out of imported mare Flamingo Guitar (USA) (Storm Cat {USA}), the sister to Grade winner Fantasticat (USA), from a family with a host of American black type.
Stable representative Frank Salanitri expects to see more improvement from the gelding into his 3-year-old season.
"He sustained a long run to the line and it was good to get a victory," he said. "We always had this race in the back of our mind if things didn’t go right in the Showdown, we thought we’d back up and it looks good.
"It’s great for Eddie Hirsch, he's been a great supporter of ours and he's put a lot of money into the industry and it's nice to get the results for him."
Hirsch has invested significantly into the Victoria industry in recent years highlighted by his purchase of Foxwedge to stand at Woodside Park Stud ahead of the 2019 season.
