Washington Heights will have his next race start in the 2014 Ming Dynasty Quality at Royal Randwick on September 6 after trainer Gerald Ryan opted not to run the talented colt in the 2014 The Run To The Rose at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday.
Washington Heights finished second behind Nostradamus in the 2014 San Domenico Stakes at Rosehill Gardens a fortnight ago. Photo by: Steve Hart
Washington Heights had just one race start as a juvenile, when he finished second behind Hallowed Crown in the Group 3 Kindergarten Stakes (1100m) at Royal Randwick on April 12, and started his 2014 Spring Racing Carnival campaign with an impressive second behind Nostradamus in the Group 3 San Domenico Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on August 16.
Ryan told Racing Ahead that he was happy with the way that Washington Heights had come through his first-up performance and he confirmed that the Group 1 Golden Rose Stakes (1400m) was still on the agenda for the Commands colt if he won the Group 3 Ming Dynasty Quality (1400m).
“He has improved off it and he has come out of it good,” Ryan said.
“He was bouncing the next day after the race and he has come out of it really.
“He will go to the Ming Dynasty.
“We were going to run him Saturday, he is on the borderline of getting into the Golden Rose and if we miss Saturday we can go to the Ming Dynasty and if he happened to win and we wanted to back him up and run in the Golden Rose than we still could.
“Otherwise he would go to the Spring Stakes at Newcastle ten days later.”
Ryan has always had a big opinion of Washington Heights and he is happy with the progress that the three-year-old has made in his two race starts to date, but believes that the colt still has plenty of improvement in front of him as he gets deeper into his spring campaign.
“He is a big horse and he always looked like he would be a three-year-old,” Ryan said.
“He ran in the two-year-old races and he went a lot further as a two-year-old than I thought he would.
“He copes well with it, he is a great doer, he is doing well and you would think that he will improve as the journeys get a bit longer and he gets a bit more race sense about him.
“At this stage I am happy with where he is heading.”
Washington Heights is currently available at 2014 Caulfield Guineas odds of $21 in the betting market with Ladbrokes Australia.
