Trainer Scott Singleton is embracing Sobek’s unbeaten streak and is eager to introduce the gelding to metropolitan racing this weekend.
Sobek is set to make his city debut at Rosehill’s season-opening meeting on Saturday. The promising four-year-old is nominated for two 1200-metre races: the $160,000 Benchmark 72 for three and four-year-olds, and the $120,000 Class 3 Highway Handicap, with Singleton leaning towards the latter.
He is aiming for his fourth consecutive win to start his career, following two victories at Scone this preparation and a maiden win at Taree in January. Singleton confessed he didn’t anticipate the gelding’s rapid rise through the grades.
“It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before his first trial that he actually started to show us anything at home and he’s just kept getting better as he’s gone along,” Singleton stated. “He’s had five trials and three starts and won everything, he hasn’t been beaten yet in a trial or a race, so obviously he knows how to win, which is a big tick for any horse.
“I just feel like he’s strong enough and probably got enough race craft now to go down for a Highway and be pretty hard to beat.”
Sobek, who reaches four years of age on Saturday, is a son of Vinery stallion Headwater. His dam, Holy Empress, traces back to Holy One, a daughter of the Woodman mare Pure Grace, who was a half-sister to the former Bart Cummings-trained champion Saintly.
While Sobek’s three wins have been over 900 and 1000 metres, Singleton is confident the gelding will perform even better over 1200 metres. A dominant 4-1/2-length victory in a 1200m trial at Muswellbrook on July 15 gave the trainer confidence he was ready for the longer trip.
“Even though he’s won over 900 and 1000, I think he will be better over 1200,” Singleton explained. “I just wanted him to show us at the trials the other day that he’d be strong through the line over the 1200 and he was, he just kept galloping, so I’ll be going there confident that he’s in the right order.”
Singleton has not mapped out a long-term campaign for Sobek, but admitted a strong showing on Saturday could prompt bigger ambitions.
“I’m just happy for him to tell us how he fits into the scheme of things,” he said. “I wouldn’t have him in front of another horse of mine, Lord Remlap, as a The Kosciuszko-type of horse, but I’m open to the fact he might surprise me again on the weekend.
“When they’re improving you don’t know where that improvement stops, do you?”
The $2 million The Kosciuszko, a 1200-metre race restricted to horses trained in regional New South Wales, will be run at Randwick on The Everest Day on October 17.
Betting markets for the Highway Handicap at Rosehill are now open with top online bookmakers.