Aft Cabin dominates Guineas Prelude in torrential rain
As the rain came thumping down, so did Aft Cabin and Jamie Kah who showed the 2022 Caulfield Guineas Prelude field a clean pair of heels to kick off the bend and take home his first Group race of his short career.
The three-year-old colt smashed his rivals in horrible conditions to give Godolphin another live chance to go back-to-back in the Caulfield Guineas after Anamoe’s win in last year edition.
After jumping quickly with the first few, the James Cummings-trained colt sat outside the lead and on the home corner he kicked clear and never looked like being beaten, as he won eased down by 3.5 lengths as the $2.15 favourite.
2022 Caulfield Guineas Prelude
“It was an extraordinary watch wasn’t it?” said Godolphin’s stable foreman, Sean Keogh.
“The first half of the race you’d be thinking, you know, how’s this gonna play out? But he is a quality animal and overcame the conditions today and paid way to them.
“We took him (Aft Cabin) here on Tuesday and he really, really put in a solid piece of work and it just shows, a good testament to the horse and how classy he was to absorb that work.”
Jamie Kah, who has ridden the son of Astern at all of his three Victorian starts, explained after the race, “that was one of the worst”, when referring to the conditions during the Group 3 event.
“I could not see anything. I would hate to people behind me because obviously I had no horse in front of me and I still couldn’t see.”
“But my boy was just the ultimate professional, he was getting hail in his face and he just tucked his head down and did his job.”
“The feel he gave me was amazing, I couldn’t see actually how far in front we were so obviously he is a star on the rise. It was nice to see him back to 14 (1400 metres) and he was sharper at that trip and further is just gonna be a bonus.”
Aft Cabin is now the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas favourite at $3 with online betting sites.