The Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott-trained Shangri La Spring ($15) has been rated beautifully by Tim Clark, leading all of the way to claim the Group 3 Frank Packer Plate (2000m) at Randwick on Saturday afternoon.
The son of Castelvecchio did it comfortably in the end, ticking over some soft sectionals in the middle stages before booting clear of his rivals, chalking up his first stakes victory at start seven.
It couldn’t have gone any better for the lightly raced three-year-old, stepping cleanly from barrier six to have an uncontested lead throughout the 2000m journey.
Tyler Schiller was much more aggressive aboard Swiftfalcon (), with the heavily supported favourite with horse racing bookmakers taking his back in an attempt to take luck out of the equation.
It backfired in the end, however, with Swiftfalcon the first horse beaten as the sprint went on, while Firm Agreement () and Plymouth both went right on by despite stepping back in trip from the Group 1 Australian Derby (2400m).
They couldn’t reel in the margin of Shangri La Spring, however, with the progressive colt already off-and-gone with the $250,000 prize.
Adrian Bott spoke post-race and couldn’t have been happier with the performance.
“Tim (Clark) was able to ride a lovely, measured race today,” said Bott.
“Which is the style of race he wanted to ride off the back of his last run and getting out to a trip for the first time.
“Once he found the front he was able to get into a lovely rhythm and rated him beautifully. The way he was travelling to the 600-metre mark, I thought if he was able to quicken up like we thought he would, he was always going to be hard to beat.
“Even though last start it may have looked like he was vulnerable over the mile, I thought there was genuine excuses for that and we always had this type of preparation for him in mind and there are a few options to go up to Queensland as well through those staying trips for the three-year-olds.
“I think he’s unlocked that today and he’ll head that way.”
Tim Clark admitted fault in the last start failure aboard Shangri La Spring but was happy with the colt bouncing back to his best as he spoke post-race.
“It was probably a little bit my fault the other day,” said Clark.
“He probably wasn’t quite ready to be ridden like he was, second-up at a mile.
“That probably held him in good stead for today having a really good toughen up run under his belt on the back of Gai and Adrian’s advice to hold him up a bit more today, and getting out to 2000-metres to trust his turn-of-foot.
“We were able to do that and he got a nice time of it. He was only third-up there so I think there is a little bit more to come from him.
“They probably expected me to go a little bit quicker with the way I rode him last week. Getting to 2000, we probably didn’t need to run them into the ground. He gave a great kick and he probably peaked with 75m to go.
“He was good there and hopefully he can stretch out further.”
Shangri La Spring is currently a $26 chance with Dabble for the Group 1 Queensland Derby (2400m) on May 31.
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