Last-start winner Brutality has been sent to the paddock with a view towards the Villiers Stakes this coming summer.
The four-year-old was an eye-catching winner in the Keith Free OAM Handicap (1800m), giving jockey Regan Bayliss the second of his three winners on the day.
The son of Shamus Award finished third in the inaugural running of The Coast (1600m) when second-up this campaign, as well as running fourth in the Listed McKell Cup (2000m) two starts ago.
Pride is bypassing the spring with the son of Shamus Award, instead with dreams of a Doncaster berth in the autumn.
“I’m thinking with him, the spring rolls around too quickly, and at this point of his life he isn’t going to be a spring carnival horse, but he may well be a good autumn prospect,” he said.
“I’m going to give him a summer preparation, which will mainly be aimed around the Villiers Stakes, a nice stepping stone race for a lot of good horses over the years.
“Then concentrate on an autumn campaign where I guess if we had an ultimate goal, it would probably be to get him into the Doncaster.”
Brutality will return to Pride’s Warwick Farm base as a five-year-old next season but is still lightly raced with only 19 starts to his name.
The son of Shamus Award had six starts this preparation, with his last three runs all being on a seven-day backup.
Pride said the quick backup was a tricky decision but was worked in his favour.
“It’s a tricky one to back them up because it quite often lets them give you a peak run, or they can run quite flat,” he said.
“I don’t mind rolling the dice with those sorts of things, particularly with a four-year-old gelding, nothing much else is on the horizon for him at this point of the year, so it was worth the gamble.
“That’s probably pretty easy to say when they’ve won, but they’re racehorses and that’s their primary job.
“You’re not thinking “I’m saving him for a race in a month’s time”, the carnival is going to be here soon.
“It was just a matter of giving him enough opportunities and sure enough, he took advantage of one on Saturday.”
Kaapfever ran a gallant second in the Stayers Cup (3200m), finishing an agonising second by 0.31 lengths.
Pride has nominated Kaapfever again at Rosehill this Saturday but is unsure when we will see him next.
“There’s races around everywhere for him,” he said.
“There’s some targets in Melbourne, I’ve even got him nominated for this Saturday. We’re just going to see how he is over the next few days.
“He’s not a horse that I specifically target for generally any races in particular, he’s just a tough little horse that when he’s in we just keep racing him.”
Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au
