Feroce claims Group 1 Australian Guineas
Dominic Sutton has claimed his maiden Group 1 victory as a trainer thanks to Billy Egan piloting Feroce (+1300) to victory in the feature Group 1 Australian Guineas (1600m) at Flemington.
With the likes of Melbourne Racing Club Chairman John Kanga and Collingwood premiership coach Craig McRae in the ownership, there was plenty of noise being made in the mounting yard when the son of Super Seth crossed the line first.
After finishing an unlucky runner-up in the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas during the Melbourne Spring Carnival, Feroce appeared to be a Group winner in waiting, and Saturday would be the day for him to realise his potential.
Very little changed throughout the 1600m race, with Stay Focused (+3300) and Opening Address (+8000) taking the lead ahead of Savaglee (+900) and Plymouth (+1600).
Egan was happy to settle behind the first four in running, and once the field turned for home at the 450m mark, he peeled off the heels of Savaglee to follow the eventual runner-up into the straight.
Savaglee gave a good kick by the 300m mark; however, Feroce was going just as well as the new leader, and he joined him on the outside as the two settled down to do battle in the concluding stages.
Feroce moved up to Savaglee and took over with 100m to go and surged clear to claim a deserving victory by just under a length, with Sepals (+270) running home into third place behind Savaglee.
Dominic Sutton was very happy with the win, and he spoke post-race.
“I can’t even think of a word to say right now. Crazy,” Sutton said.
“I’ve got so many people to thank, especially my fiancée, Raquel. I couldn’t do it without her. Her dad’s flown over from the UK.
“Simon, our biggest owner, our biggest supporter, is over as well. He literally flew in this morning, and to the horse, look, we can’t do it without the horse, and he’s just an absolute warrior.
“We thought we had him right for the day. Everyone sort of probably wrote him off a little bit off his first up run, but Bill just came in and said he’s flying, mate. He just hated the soft ground, I can’t quite believe it, to be honest.
“It’s going to take a few days to settle in.
“To be honest,I’ve just been having a really tough run of running seconds recently, so I was hoping to just get a winner any where. So to do it on the biggest stage of all with this horse, he’s been the flag bearer for our stable since day one.
“It took a long time to get over the Caulfield Guineas, I’m not going to lie.
“A lot of people were congratulating us, but I still felt pretty bitter about it all, thinking that we could have won on that day. And we all know how hard it is to win these races and to have a horse good enough and present him in the right order on the day.
“I was just hoping he’d really knuckle down and go past that leader.
“He’s had a tendency of just getting his head up a little bit, but once Billy changed the stick through, and gave him a couple more reminders, he really let down and flew.”
Billy Egan was all class in his interview post-race, commenting on how happy he was for Sutton and the stable.
“I’m just really happy for Dom, you know,” Egan said.
“For a young bloke, having so many horses in his first year of training and also having group one runners in your first year of training, there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that, and he handles himself really well.
“He’s got his fiancée, Raq, and he’s got his parents as well, they’re all very supportive of him, so it’s just great that he can handle himself in such a way and do an amazing job with these horses in his first year.
“Yeah, it is (a satisfying win).
“It’s really nice to be involved with good people who work really hard and put all the effort in, and you see how much it means to them.
“All these stable staff and track riders, you see how much. So just to be part of it with them and help them get an achievement that they work towards is really nice.
“I won’t be drinking water later.
“Look, the race really worked out really nice. We had the plan to press forward and be just behind those leaders, so we weren’t too far away, because he just hasn’t got a huge sprint, but he can really hold a good gallop and just sometimes things go your way, you know, like we had the plan.
“Not often that you get it presented to you like that, but it just worked out a treat today.”
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