Darley Dreamteam To Take On Europe

Peter Snowden

Trainer Peter Snowden

Snowden’s stable of winners is to become a travelling circus with some of his top performers of the 2010 / 2011 season booked in for a UK venture.

They will both be from his superstar juvenile ranks, the team which earned Darley a clean sweep of all of the Australian two-year-old Group 1’s.

Golden Slipper champion Sepoy has been talked about as a European prospect ever since his Blue Diamond win and he will be joined by Helmet.

Helmet was erratic before the Golden Slipper and missed out on a chance, he was erratic afterwards as well but still did enough to win the Sire’s Produce Stakes and the Champagne Stakes.

Snowden travelled to the Newmarket training base last week and says he was very impressed with the facilities.

It was a holiday slash recon mission, the results telling him that Helmet and Sepoy are his number one chances for English glory.

“It is not just about the good ones going over, it is finding the right horses that will fit in the to system well,” he said.

“With Sepoy and Helmet, their ratings will be high and (they) have to compete at the elite level. Because they are southern hemisphere (bred) horses, they will be six months behind and probably won’t be competitive at their rating until probably June or July next year, that’s when they will be able to show their best.

“We are not quite sure when they will take them, we will know more after the spring carnival.”

Luckily for Australian race fans they’ll still both be sent for a full spring carnival assault in Melbourne with the horses well into the training.

That being said though their races will be specifically targeted, Snowden wary of not over racing them too early.

It’s now a delicate balancing act for the Darley operation as they try and build their colts stud value the best way possible.

Sepoy is due to return with a barrier trial in around three weeks with his first assignment to come at Caulfield on August 13th.

Helmet meanwhile will start off in Sydney in the Run To The Rose on August 23rd.

That will culminate in the Group 1 feature event Golden Rose, the $1 million race si the biggest on the Sydney spring calendar.

Fellow juvenile Group 1 champion Benfica will also return for Snowden in the spring however it will only be a short campaign after running deep into the Brisbane Winter Carnival and winning the TJ Smith.

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