Reigning three year old champ Hallowed Crown is ready to step up to 2000m in Saturday’s Group 1 $500,000 Sky Racing Rosehill Guineas at Rosehill.
Hallowed Crown is ready to step up to 2000m in the Rosehill Guineas at Rosehill. Photo by Steve Hart.
Co-trainer James Cummings describes Hallowed Crown as a horse that “loves to find the line’ in his races and has a stout staying pedigree.
“He’s a grandson of Street Cry, he’s the son of a Kentucky Derby (Street Sense) winner from the family of Zabeel and Baryshnikov and he just loves to find the line,” Cummings told Racenet.
“He loves the contest.
“The horse wants to range up to the horse in front of him, eye-ball him and go by. That’s what he loves doing.”
Hallowed Crown took his record to six wins from seven starts with a last start victory in the Group 1 $600,000 Girvan Waugh Randwick Guineas (1600m) at Randwick on March 7 and Cummings, who trained in partnership with his famous grandfather Bart Cummings, says the Street Sense colt has pulled up well and is enjoying his work on the tracks.
“He was lovely and relaxed. He’s enjoying his work over ground,” James Cummings said.
“My grandfather tells me when a horse is happy they get better and better.
“From what I saw from him in his work on Saturday and today, it’s not a horse that wants to savage the line every time he comes out to work. It’s the work of a horse that’s building, and keeps building into his preparation and he’s built up a good record.
“I concede there is pressure to keep adding to that on Saturday but I’m confident the horse is spot on.”
Hallowed Crown showed his fighting qualities when he hit the line hard to down Sweynesse and Kermadec in the Group 2 $200,000 Blackwoods CRC Hobartville Stakes (1400m) at Rosehill on February 21 and repeated that effort in beating the same colt in the Randwick Guineas.
The Randwick Guineas win was Hallowed Crown second Group 1 victory following his win in the Spring last year when he beat Scissor Kick and Shooting To Win in the $1m De Bortoli Wines Golden Rose Stakes (1400m) at Rosehill.
Hallowed Crown will be taking on Sweynesse again in the Rosehill Guineas and the John O’Shea trained colt is also looking for the step up to 2000m after being runner-up to Hallowed Crown at his last two starts.
Hallowed Crown and Sweynesse currently share favouritism for the Rosehill Guineas at $4 a piece with Ladbrokes.com.au just ahead of the Chris Waller trained Kermadec at $4.20.
The two Kiwi three year olds are next in the betting with Mongolian Khan at $6 and Volkstock’n’barrell at $8 ahead of Omeros and Ruling Dynasty at $17, Preferment at $21 and Hampton Court and Quick Strike at $26.
The rest of the field are at longer odds with Firehouse Rock and Merion at $34, Gouldian and Pounamu at $67 and Triple Gold the rank outsider at $81.
