Group Three winner Trust In You made his first public outing of his preparation at Pukekohe on Tuesday, with trainers Grant Cooksley and Bruce Wallace eyeing a potentially lucrative spring campaign with the rising six-year-old.
The son of Sweynesse was one of the top staying performers of the summer, winning the Stayers Championship Final (2400m) and Group 3 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (2400m) at Pukekohe on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day respectively, and was runner-up in the Nathans Memorial (2200m) at Ellerslie.
He returned to Pukekohe on Tuesday to compete in a pipe-opener over 800m, and Cooksley was satisfied with his fourth placed run.
“He just had a run over 800m to bring him on a little bit and he went quite well,” Cooksley said.
“He is just getting stronger as he gets older, and he has come back really good, I am quite happy with him.”
Spring feature targets await Trust In You, with Sydney being the favoured destination at this stage of his preparation.
“We are thinking about going to Sydney for the Metropolitan (Group 1, 2400m), but we will just see how he comes up,” Cooksley said.
Trust In You was joined in his heat by new stablemate Meaningful Star, who pleased with his third placed hit-out.
The Irish-bred gelding was formerly trained in Hong Kong by Francis Lui, for whom he won four races up to Class 2 level.
Cooksley said they are still learning about the son of Pivotal and are yet to map out a spring plan for the horse with an 87 rating.
“I don’t know much about the horse,” Cooksley said. “The owner rang us about six or seven months ago, we gave him a bit of work, put him out and have brought him back and gave him a run around (today) to see what he can do. It was quite a good trial.
“We have no plans for him at the moment, we will just see what happens.”
Meanwhile, promising juvenile So Naïve has returned to work alongside Group Three winner Sacred Satono.
“The plan (with Sacred Satono) is to go to the Foxbridge (Group 2, 1200m) and then the first leg at Hastings (Group 1 Tarzino Trophy, 1400m).”
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