Resuming with a dominant victory in the G2 The Mark Stakes recently, Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou’s 4yo Written Tycoon stallion Skyhook looked even more impressive on Saturday, charging away to win in the $300,000 G2 ATC Shannon Stakes (1500m).
Straight to the lead from the inside barrier, jockey Kerrin McEvoy allowed the free-striding chestnut to lead at a solid pace with $13m earner Private Eye stalking the pace in second.
Racing off the fence as he rounded the home bend, Skyhook was still full of running, and while Private Eye started to make a little ground along the inside, he was purely racing for a place prizemoney as the leader went bang.
Kicking up into another gear with a little shake up from McEvoy, Skyhook was simply devastating in the run to the line, pulling clear to win by just under three lengths from Joe Pride’s Estadio Mestalla (IRE) who had settled in fourth in the run.
Holding on for third was Private Eye while Gary Portelli’s Encap was noted working home well late into fourth.
“I think he is (getting better),” enthused co-trainer Gerald Ryan. “At the Gold Coast sales in June, I spoke to John Messara about him because they bred him and I said about running him as a four-year-old. He said, ‘well how do you reckon he is?’ and I’d spent two-and-a-half, three weeks up there with him on my own and I said, ‘I reckon he’s getting better’.”
“Right from when he came back – he spelled at Newington up there and Kacy (Fogden) pre-trained him for us – he came back to us and I reckon he’d gone to the next level.”
“Dry tracks, wet tracks. Lead, sit back. Pretty bloody handy.”
“Beautiful ride. I thought the topweight would probably lead and we’d take the sit, but Kerrin was more, let’s put it to him and make him chase us because we’re still on our way up. My query today was 1300 to 1500 second-up, but he’s coped. He’s done it well.”
As for where he is headed, Ryan has always been adamant that the Epsom was not his race.
“He’s not going there. I’ve tested him now two weeks apart and no, he’s not going to the Epsom.”
“I’ll probably freshen him up a little bit, get the freshness in his legs for the Silver Eagle. The Golden Eagle is a different kettle of fish, but it’s a $10 million race, 1500 metres at Randwick. He’s in form, we’ll have a crack."
Having ridden now ridden him to three consecutive group victories, McEvoy feels his is continuing to improve.
“He is going great,” said McEvoy. “He was lovely and fresh and bouncy going to the start which I was pleased to see because I hadn’t been on him since his last run.”
“He is handling himself really well. He takes bad luck out of the equation. That is half the battle sometimes. He was able to make use of the good draw today.”
“He is a nice horse to ride, relaxed. He is doing it easy sometime and building up through his gears. It is nice to have that underneath knowing you can build and have more to offer.”
A $575,000 Magic Millions purchase from the draft of breeder Arrowfield Stud, who also bred and sold Saturday’s G2 Golden Pendant winner Lazzura, Skyhook races for a big syndicate of owners which includes Matthew Ennis of Stallion Match.
Skyhook is the second foal and first winner out of the winning Redoute’s Choice mare Madame Pauline, a winning sibling to the G3 winner Anders and fellow stakes winners Ostraka and Caffe Florian. Madame Pauline produced her fourth foal recently, a colt by Castelvecchio on August 8.
Now a five-time group winner, Skyhook is one of 82 stakes winners for the Yulong based Written Tycoon whose fee is currently listed a F.O.A.
