Trainer Peter Snowden is likely to give well-bred colt Grand Prairie his chance in early season three-year-old stakes races in the coming weeks after the juvenile’s breakthrough victory on the Kensington track at Randwick on Wednesday.
The second live foal out of Group 1 winner Viddora, Written Tycoon colt Grand Prairie showed talent in two Sydney starts during his initial racing campaign before resuming in the 1100m two-year-old maiden under jockey Tommy Sherry with just a fortnight of the 2024/25 racing season to go.
“He’s a nice horse and we’ve always liked him,” Snowden told Sky Racing.
“He was still wanting to look around at the other horses and stargaze and if he can win doing that, you know he’s only going to improve. The more experience he gets, the better he will be and he’s a nice horse going forward.
“He’s in at the right time of year and he's ready to launch with a lot of good racing coming up. It's up to him whether he keeps stepping up, but he’s got a great pedigree and is out of a very good mare.
“It's a pleasure to have a Yulong horse that is going well.”
A homebred for Yulong, who passed in the colt with a reserve of $500,000 at last year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, Grand Prairie's half-sister O’Invincible has won two of her four starts on the NSW provincial circuit for trainer Bjorn Baker.
Viddora, who was bought by Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng for $2.55 million at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in 2020, has a weanling filly by Diatonic and is in foal to Pierata.