Trainer Craig Carmody, who previously conditioned Sir Les’ dam, Everage, to stakes success, is dedicating significant effort to refining the promising three-year-old gelding’s natural capabilities.
The All Too Hard colt demonstrated considerable promise in his first two starts, followed by a close fifth in a benchmark 72 Midway race at Rosehill Gardens on May 30th.
Carmody has opted to provide ample spacing between Sir Les’ runs, a strategy aimed at improving his ability to settle, a quality he anticipates will be on display in a three-year-old benchmark 72 race over 1100m at his home track, Royal Randwick, this Saturday.
“He’s going well,” Carmody confirmed.
“He’s had a bit of time in between runs because I just wanted to work a bit on his ability to sort of respond to pressure. He’s been sort of wanting to charge through pressure, as you’ve probably realised when he’s raced, just going a little bit hard.”
“I’ve worked really hard trying to get that going a bit better and I feel as though Chad (Lever) might get a little bit better response on Saturday from him.”
Having secured victories in his first two starts over 1000m, the 1100m distance in town will be a key indicator for Sir Les, though Carmody envisions him developing into a reliable sprinter for many seasons.
“I really needed the last month just to work on getting that response going a little bit better,” Carmody elaborated.
“And look, I’m optimistic that I’m winning that battle, so I’d love to for him to show that on Saturday that he’s listening to the bridle a bit better.”
“I trained the mother, she was a very handy two-year-old, she won what is now the Percy Sykes, formerly the Keith Mackay, we only paid twenty thousand for her and that sparked the interest in Sir Les.”
“He’s only young so I’m in no hurry to race him often, I just want to want to get some lessons into him, get some experience into him, because I think he’s going to be a very handy four-and-five-year-old sprinter.”
Consider the available racing odds for Saturday’s feature race at Royal Randwick through various online bookmakers.