A trip to the Gold Coast for the rich Magic Millions awaits Invisible who has dented a few reputations with his debut win at Canterbury.
The first winner for his sire All American, Invisible ($10) showed maturity beyond his experience when he claimed fellow debutant and equal race favourite Jetwings ($3.30) in the straight to win the TAB Ipad App Plate (1200m) by three-quarters of a length.
The other equal favourite, Nordic Empire, found the line strongly to finish another length third after getting lost in his first clockwise race.
Ridden by James McDonald and trained by the Hawkes family partnership, Invisible was promoted to $6.50 for the $2 million Magic Millions Classic (1200m) on January 11 along with Melbourne winner Chivalry while Nordic Empire was eased from that price to $10.
Echo Gal and Oakleigh Girl remained at the top of the market ahead of Saturday’s B J McLachlan Stakes at Doomben.
“He’s booked his ticket to the Magic Millions which has always been the race we had in mind,” co-trainer Michael Hawkes said.
“He has been a lovely horse from day one and is a relaxed, cool, calm and collected customer.
“We trialled him on Tuesday ahead of today which is not something we would usually do with two-year-olds but we knew what we had.
“He ticked all the boxes at the sales and stood out as an A-grader which is why we paid $280,000 for him off a $10,000 service fee for the stallion.”
Runner-up Jetwings will head to the paddock for a short break before being prepared for the autumn.
Nordic Empire’s jockey Damien Oliver said he was not too unhappy with his third.
“He was a bit new the Sydney way of going,” he said.
“But I liked his last 150 metres.”
Invisible races in the black and white colours of Tony Pistikakis and have been carried to Group One wins by Railings and Headturner.
The Hawkes-McDonald momentum continued in the 1200m benchmark 75 for three-year-olds when favourite Maysoon ($3.10) scored a stylish 1-3/4 length win over Chosen Idol ($21).
It was the third win from just six start for the filly who will be given a let-up ahead of some richer autumn racing.
