Winning his most recent trial, the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott trained Our Emperor become the seventh first crop winner for his Newgate Farm-based, Golden Slipper-winning sire Stay Inside, recording an emphatic all the way victory on debut at Wednesday’s Warwick Farm meeting.
With only one of the 14 runners having previously faced the starter on race day, trial form came into play with the Peter Snowden trained Crescent King starting the race favourite narrowly ahead of grey colt Our Emperor.
Jumping away sharply from the inside gate, Tim Clark urged the colt along to go forward to take up the running, a length and a half clear from Woppitt Bloodstock’s Written By colt Iommi, himself a half-brother to G1 winner Lindermann.
Racing a few lengths off the inside fence, Our Emperor cornered in front, with the colt showing superior ability to go even further, pulling clear to win on debut by just shy of three and three quarter lengths.
Iommi did a great job up on the speed to hold on for second for James McDonald while the Jason Coyle trained Exit Clause worked into third with the favourite finishing in fourth.
“Very talented colt,” stated co-trained Adrian Bott. “Always been that from the outset.”
“We saw him earlier, I think he was out at the official two-year-old trials and then just had a little bit of immaturity there at that point.
“So he's been put away and he's come back stronger and better this time through. I'm sure there's some good targets for him in store going forward.
“The best part about that is obviously the attitude that the horse has got. He's so professional and for Tim to ask him and give him that message there early, he was just as quick to come back underneath him.
“He was able to relax beautifully throughout the run and he rated himself lovely, just conserved himself, and Tim knew exactly sort of what he had underneath him. A professional attitude to go with it."
When asked where to next for the colt, Bott felt the Spring carnival would be his time to shine.
“I think no doubt he's going to be aimed up at the spring. So it's just about what's the exact path to get there, what is the exact target, what's his best distance, you know, will we look to stretch him over a little bit further or just keep him to the short explosive trips with the sustained speed he showed."
“So a couple of good problems to think about, so we'll work that out shortly.
"I think it's obviously beneficial to give him a nice little break and, you know, particularly what we want to try and achieve with him as a three-year-old, where the targets that count for him.
“We want to make sure we do everything to give him that best chance.”
Having ridden him in two of his three trials, jockey Tim Clark came to the races confident of a win.
“Yeah, he was great,” enthused Clark. “He, you know, typical of Gai and Adrian, just executed so well for a horse having his first start, which we expected him to do, though, because he just hasn't put a foot wrong, you know.”
“Not only this, but also, you know, as an early two-year-old, he got to the trials early, so he showed that good promise from early on, and he's come back really well, and just a pleasure to do anything with.
“I thought gate one was probably the only thing that could beat him coming here…we don't jump that cleanly, but after we'd gone three strides, he was the length and a half in front.
“Obviously, that made my job a whole lot easier. I was able to sort of control the race, get to the part of the track I wanted to. And, yeah, I was able to dictate from that point onwards.”
Purchased by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott Racing as well as Bruce Slade’s Kestrel Thoroughbreds from the Newgate Farm draft at the Magic Millions Yearling Sale for $280,000, the half-brother to G2 Run To The Rose runner-up Moravia is one of three winners from three to the races out of the dual Listed-winning Star Witness mare Our Crown Mistress.
From the extended family of G1 winners Racing To Win and Chain of Lightning as well as Everest hero Classique Legend, Our Crown Mistress’ yearling filly by Snitzel was sold for $160,000 at this year’s Magic Millions yearling sale to Doyle Racing and Mitchell Bloodstock (FBAA).
The mare foaled a colt by Extreme Choice in the spring before being covered by the same stallion once again.
Set to stand the upcoming covering season at a fee of $66,000 (inc. GST), Stay Inside’s first crop runners have been represented by G3 winners Blue Door and Incognito as well as the Listed winner Lassified and the G2 runner up Eviction Notice.
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