Star galloper Shoot Out showed he is the horse to beat this spring with a brilliant first-up victory in the $125,000 Group Three Bletchingly Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield on Saturday.
The John Wallace-trained galloper finished his last campaign with a superb win in the AJC Australian Derby, so it was hard to know what to expect over six furlongs, his first time the Melbourne way of going.
With regular jockey Stathi Katsidis on board, Shoot Out bounced quickly from his inside draw, sat on the speed over the sprint distance, looked like he was going to fade after straightening, looked like he was going to stick on for a placing at the 200m then looked capable of anything as he kicked into gear at the 100m.
Clearly with plenty of improvement up his sleeve, and over an unsuitable journey against older horses, the turn of foot Shoot Out showed when Katsidis got stuck in at the 100m was impressive to say the least.
At the line the margin of victory was a half length to Stanzout (Williams) with three quarters to Velocitea (Newitt) in third place. The overall time was 1.11.73 with the last 600m run in 35.44.
“I was surprised to see him up there, but I did tell Stathi when he went out ‘you ride your own race’,” Wallace said.
“He is nowhere near ready at the moment; he will just improve and improve. He might be really, really good this horse. He has done things I have never seen horses do, he is just a superstar horse; I love him so much.”
“We will take it as it comes. I don’t want to kill him. I want him there for a while, they are hard to get.
“He had five weeks off then I just brought him along quietly. I have never even galloped him hard, we have done a lot of evens and steady work, he swims a lot and is enjoying life.”
Katsidis was full of praise for the star galloper after returning to scale.
“Potentially he is the best horse that I will ever be associated with and I still have 25 years left in my career, but these horses come along once in a lifetime and I am just very lucky to be on board,” Katsidis said.
“I could have led if I wanted to, but I thought I had better take a hold of him because he has to go twice around this track if he gets to the Caulfield Cup, so I hope doesn’t start pulling in the first lap “There is a long way to go. John has trained him absolutely sensationally, he had him really, really fresh for today and that is why he raced like he did and he did the same last time first-up then he was able to get him run the 2400m of the Derby, so John has him spot on for whatever he is doing.
“He has got an awesome motor and a lot of character.”
Shoot Out is by High Chaparral out of Pentamerous (NZ) and is owned by G L Huddy & Mrs L F Huddy. He has a record of six wins and two minors from 12 starts and has prizemoney totalling $1,439,950.