Jockey Dwayne Dunn has finally found his horse of a lifetime, All Too Hard, but the dream ride is going to be short lived with the $20 million colt due to begin stud duties in the Spring.
Dwayne Dunn and All Too Hard chalking up another Group 1 win. Photo by Race Horse Photos Australia.
The thirty-nine year old jockey’s star studded career has been lacking that super star to carry him to the dizzy heights of a jockey’s life, but his association the Team Hawkes trained All Too Hard has fulfilled a lifetime dream.
“It’s probably taken twenty years to fine a horse with this sort of potential and as far as I’m concerned I want him to keep racing as long as he can,” Dunn said.
“Obviously there will be a stud career in mind, but he is the one with the potential to rise to the top.”
Dunn has been aboard All Too Hard for all six of his wins and is lining up for win number seven in the Group 1 $500,000 Australian Guineas (1600m) at Flemington as a very short priced favourite.
As well as being super mare Black Caviar’s half-brother, All Too Hard stamped his potential as a future stallion when he defeated Sydney’s best three year old Pierro in the Group 1 $1m BECK Caulfield Guineas (1600m) at Caulfield on October 13.
All Too Hard rubber-stamped that potential with two successive wins this Autumn at weight for age in the $400,000 Sportingbet C.F. Orr Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on February 9 and the Group 1 $500,000 Cathay Pacific Futurity Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield two weeks later.
Dunn, who rode four consecutive Group 1 Blue Diamond winners from 2005 to 2008 rated the David Hayes trained Rewaaya as the one to help him rise to the top but the Group 1 wining mare never reached her potential.
All Too Hard originally raced under the banner of Nathan Tinkler’s Patinack Farm but was purchased by Vinery Stud along with a group of investors in a $25 million package deal after running second to Ocean Park in last year’s Group 1 $3m Sportingbet Cox Plate (2040m) at Moonee Valley on October 27.
Dunn has confirmed what all racegoers have seen, that All Too Hard has returned in the Autumn a stronger and more mature race horse than we saw in the spring.
“Bigger, stronger, better,” Dunn said.
“As a two year old he was physically there but he was like baby fat, but now he’s turned from a boy to a man.”
Hawkes will head to Sydney after the Australian Guineas in an endeavour to silence the critics who say All Too Hard is not as good north of the border even though he has a win on the board when he took out the Group 2 $175,000 Bowermans Office Furniture Pago Pago Stakes (1200m) at Rosehill as a two year old last Autumn.
“I want him to win a big race in Sydney and show his knockers he’s just as good up there,” Hawkes said.
“To win the Pago Pago like he did means you have to be handling Sydney pretty well.”
And an English campaign in also on the agenda with the Group 1 £250,000 The Queen Anne Stakes (1 mile) at Royal Ascot in June a chance to enhance the colt’s future stud career in the Northern Hemisphere if the opportunity arise.
