A One to Watch when winning easily on debut at Pakenham in June, the Lindsay Park Racing trained Justify (USA) colt Ndola was then beaten into second place at Caulfield last month when he was most unlucky, but he bounced back in no uncertain terms at Sandown on Wednesday with a commanding victory.
A short priced favourite for the 1200m Benchmark 64 event over 1200m, he gave Luke Currie an easy ride as he cruised away from his rivals to win by two and a half lengths in the familiar blue and pink colours of the Devitt and Gordon families.
“I was very impressed! I thought Luke did a good thing, just letting him get balanced and get into a rhythm, then he was wide around the bend and his final 100m was very impressive as he was running right away from them,” said co-trainer Ben Hayes.
“He’s a horse we believe will be much better out to 1400m and a mile and we think he is very, very good.”
Ndola has been entered for the Cox Plate, but there will be a pathway through the good three year-old races before that possible ultimate dream goal comes into play.
“There are plenty of three year-old options and in two and a half weeks we’ll look at the Exford Plate which would be a good step up to 1400m, but he would now be our number one seed for the Caulfield Guineas, so exciting times ahead.
“He’s a lovely, lengthy colt, a beautiful looking horse and to see him win like that gives us a lot of confidence.”
Ndola is a homebred for Peter Devitt and partners as was his mother the Group III winning sprinter Hear the Chant, sired by another Devitt and partners homebred in Nicconi.
Hear the Chant has made a great start to her stud career with her first three foals to race all being winners and she has two fillies to follow by Shamus Award and is due to foal to Blue Point (IRE) this spring.
Justify will not return to Coolmore Australia this spring following his extraordinary success in the Northern Hemisphere, so there will be considerable interest in his Australian foals born this year with 188 mares covered in 2023 a fee of $77,000.
Coolmore are pleased to make Justify available for Southern Hemisphere covers in Kentucky.
