Serasana dominates her rivals to claim Sandown Guineas
Serasana (+1200) has produced a devastating turn of foot to run away from her rivals to take out the Group 2 Sandown Guineas at Caulfield, giving Robbie Griffiths & Mathew de Kock their first victory in the race and John Allen’s second in six years.
The three-year-old filly hadn’t won since her debut 12 months ago, but after running fourth in a Benchmark 64 Handicap at Sandown last start, the daughter of Snitzel proved too slick on Saturday.
Craig Williams took Modown (+500) to the lead and Allen chose to push forward and settle outside the unlikely leader, with Power Of The Brave (+650) forced to race three-wide outside of Riverina Power (+4000) and Vivy Air (+360).
The market elect, Arkansaw Kid (+180), trucked up to the leading quartet five-wide, but as he looked the winner, Serasana kicked strongly on the inside and booted clear at the 200m mark to put two lengths on her rivals.
Maintaining her margin on the race favourite, who held onto second place, Serasana ran through the line as strong as anything to record a 2.5-length win, with Vivy Air running home into third.
2023 Sandown Guineas Replay – Serasana | T: Robbie Griffiths & Mathew de Kock | J: John Allen
Mathew de Kock represented the stable post-race after bringing up their second win at Caulfield.
“This was the goal when we set out as a partnership, thank you so much to everyone involved in us for the support,” de Kock said.
“It’s lovely to get a result like this because we’ve always thought really highly of this filly and John just gave it an absolutely perfect ride so what a day to have a Group Two double.
“We never left the winner’s box from the last one!
“We’ve had Group Two success before but this is definitely our first Group double on the one day, that’s for sure.
“I had to go to my pedigree guru Robbie Griffiths to ask him about Snitzel’s in the wet but he was pretty confident that they handle it and she was fit and well and there was no reason not to run today.”
John Allen was pleasantly surprised by the margin of Serasana’s victory, and he elaborated on that post-race.
“To be honest I was pleasantly surprised how well she won, she gave me a nice feel the last day but I probably didn’t see a performance like that coming,” Allen said.
“She really benefited from the run and the conditions and improvement to step up to the mile, she was very strong.
“She jumped well, there was a bit of pressure early on so I just took my time to get there but once we got outside the lead she relaxed nicely, got into a good rhythm and I was always travelling like a winner.
“I could see there was something coming to my outside, I wasn’t sure who it was but when I clicked my horse up she really responded and picked up the whole way to the line.
“She never peaked on her run and really ran through the line so a good performance.”