Tron Bolt’s JJ ambition
Chris Waller may have sent unbeaten colt St Gotthard to the spelling paddock, but he immediately unearthed an able Brisbane Winter carnival replacement on the Kensington track on Wednesday.
The premier Sydney trainer confirmed on Tuesday that the Coolmore-owned two-year-old St Gotthard, who won the Ken Russell at the Gold Coast on Saturday, would not run again this season and less than 24 hours later high-priced colt Tron Bolt won impressively on the inside track at Randwick.
Following the son of Toronado’s impressive victory over 1400m, Waller outlined plans to target the Group 1 JJ Atkins over 1600m at Eagle Farm next month with the Hermitage Thoroughbreds-owned colt.
“As we touched on pre-race, he was a nice, Ready 2 Race horse, and he’s impressed us since day one. I wouldn’t say I was surprised he got beaten on debut, but I’m certainly not surprised to see him win as well as he did today,” Waller told Sky Racing.
“He’ll race again in two and a half weeks, there’s the Sires Produce in Queensland or there is a 1300m event at Rosehill, so he will race in one of those two and if he can win or run well we will go to the JJ Atkins (G1 1600m). He will get a mile easy.”
Hermitage’s Hong Kong owner Eugene Chuang paid $900,000 for the Gilgai Farm-bred Tron Bolt, who is out of Group 3 winner Baccarat Baby, herself a half-sister to Group 1 winner Duais and a three-quarter sister to Group 2 winner Philia.
Tron Bolt was bought by Liam Ruddy’s Hunter Lodge ready to run operation for $250,000 at last year’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale. Ruddy was then able to on-sell the colt for $900,000 at the Inglis Ready to Race Sale last October.
Meanwhile, first-crop Coolmore stallion Home Affairs sired his third winner in five days when Home Invasion won first-up at the midweek metropolitan meeting at Bendigo.
The Darby Racing-owned filly ran fifth in the Gimcrack last October at her only previous start for trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. Home Affairs, who will stand for a fee of $176,000 (inc GST) this year, has sired 11 first-crop winners so far, eight in Australia and three in New Zealand.
