A good day at the office for Darley Stud’s Shooting To Win on Wednesday with a pair of progressive three-year-old winners and a four-year-old winner that is starting to live up to his early promise.
Miss Twenty Two (3f ex: Sakitto) had to share her win at Eagle Farm with the Snitzel filly Daisy Street but Shooting To Win had a day out at Bendigo with the winners Hickok (3c ex: Monira) and Shotmaker (4g ex: Maroon Bay). Then Godolphin’s heavily backed 4yo mare Special Snap was favoured to give Shooting To Win a treble but was run down in the closing stages by Goldifox (Foxwedge).
The Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained Shotmaker has had a boom on him since finishing second in the Group III Blue Diamond Prelude at Caulfield back in February last year but he has been a frustrating character.
He may be getting back on track. After breaking his maiden at Wodonga in August he placed at Sandown and Bendigo before earning his second win on Wednesday.
The Tony Noonan-trained Hickock may be the one to follow from the meeting.
Ridden by Noonan's son Jake, Hickok had just one runner behind him on the turn home before powering down the centre of the track to break his maiden over 1100m at his third start.
He had a half-head to spare over the Hinchinbrook gelding Fixated who had some useful form that included a third to Hanseatic and Glenfiddich in the Listed Blue Diamond Preview.
Tony Noonan admitted he was concerned in the run.
"I was worried, he got back further in the field than what we had planned," Noonan told Racing.com.
"I think he's a mile-plus horse in the making so we went there today, even though we wanted to win, we had a plan as far as what we wanted from him.
"Once he got out, got a bit of room and balanced I was hoping that line wasn't going to come up too quick because I knew he would run on strongly.
"I've got a good group of people, some really good mates, in the horse and it's always nice to get a result when you're surrounded by friends.
The son of Shooting To Win holds an entry for the $2 million Caulfield Guineas (1600m) on October 10.
"He's got to keep winning to warrant going that way, but we'll see how he comes home, I think there's good improvement to come," he said.
A $160,000 purchase by Noonan out of the Woburn Farm draft at the2019 NZB Karaka Book 1, Hickok is the second foal of the More Than Ready (USA) mare Monira.
Unplaced in her only two starts in New Zealand, Monira is a half-sister to the Group 1 New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes winner and NZ Oaks third Charmont (High Chaparral) out of the stakes-winning Danehill mare Martinique, herself a daughter of the Group 1 VRC LKS Mackinnon Stakes and Group 1 STC Ansett Australia Stakes winner Champagne (Zabeel, who was runner-up to Jezabeel in the Melbourne Cup and also placed in the AJC Australian Oaks and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
Champagne is a sister to Group 1 Zabeel Classic and New Zealand Derby hero St Reims and a three-quarter sister to the dam of triple Group 1 winner Bonneval (Makifi).
