Trainer Donna Logan has confirmed that unbeaten Kiwi galloper Hasselhoof will make the trip to Australia for the 2016 Sydney Autumn Racing Carnival.
Donna Logan is chasing her first race win in Australia since Volkstok’n’barrell took out the 2015 edition of the Rosehill Guineas. Photo by: Steve Hart
Hasselhoof made his racing debut with a win in a maiden at Ruakaka in June last year and he worked his way through the grades impressively before he claimed his sixth win from as many race starts in the Group 2 Rich Hill Mile (1600m) at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.
Logan has been thrilled with the improvement that Hasselhoof has shown each time that he has been to the races and she believes that the Tavistock gelding has earnt the right to be given an opportunity in Australia.
“He has stepped up every time we have asked him to take the next step,” Logan said.
“He has just kept improving.
“We have looked at what is in front of us in New Zealand for him and there is really not a lot.
“There is a staying 2200 race, but we thought that he is just too sharp at this point to jump to 2200, so we decided that at some stage he has to travel over to Australia and we thought that we would take him over and see how he travels.
“If he settles in, we will take it from there.
“He still mentally has a bit of improvement in him, but the most professionally he ever raced was in his last start at Ellerslie and realistically we thought that he deserves a trip at a trip away.”
Hasselhoof is a Group 2 winner in New Zealand, but Logan doesn’t have any particularly lofty goals with the four-year-old in the early stages of his autumn campaign.
Logan said that she will find a race over a mile for Hasselhoof to make his Australian racing debut before he returns to black-type level in the Listed Parramatta Cup (1900m) at Rosehill Gardens on February 20.
“At this point we are just going to bring him over and run him at a mile and then there is a Listed 1900 metre race on the 20th at Rosehill,” Logan said.
“We will just see – if he is not happy and he hasn’t travelled then it is easy to come back home and start again.
“We have been that patient with him now that it is definitely not worth pushing buttons at this point of his life.”
Logan has had plenty of success in the recent editions of the Sydney Autumn Racing Carnival after taking out the Australian Oaks with Rising Romance in 2014 and the Rosehill Guineas with Volkstok’n’barrel last year.
