Snowden yard posts 100 winners for season
The 100th winner of the season for Peter and Paul Snowden will be given a chance to be remembered for more than being a milestone horse for the training partnership.
In a genuine show of faith in the growing maturity of Jericho, the two-year-old will join the Snowdens’ Brisbane team for the winter carnival after bringing up the stable’s century at Warwick Farm on Wednesday.
Well tried to start the $1.75 favourite, Jericho enjoyed the run of the race before getting the better of Virgilio ($26) to win by long head.
It wasn’t a convincing margin, but it was enough for Paul Snowden to declare the colt a runner in the BTC Sires’ Produce Stakes at Doomben on May 28.
“We’ll give him every opportunity to get up there. It’s certainly the next step from here and he’s going up there in good order,” Snowden said.
“He’s bred to get a bit further. He’s heading the right way and now it’s about time he stands up and we can see where he sits against everything.”
The Snowden stable went into the midweek meeting on 98 winners and Faith’s Encore edged the yard closer to triple figures with her win in the first race – the All Too Hard Handicap.
“It’s a big buzz for the stable to get 100 winners,” Snowden said.
Faith’s Encore also started favourite as a $2.20 chance and she enjoyed a similar run to her stablemate before scoring much more decisively.
Her debut win came as her dam, the Danehill mare Faith Hill who is in foal to Pierro, went through the Australian Broodmare and Weanling Sale ring on Wednesday for $100,000.
Faith’s Encore made her debut after two barrier trials and she rewarded the Snowdens’ decision to send her to the races.
“We almost put her out after her second trial and we just gave her a chance to see how she recovered,” Snowden said.
“She is very immature, still learning and she’s going to gain a lot out of that.”
The Snowdens have now trained the winners of 14 two-year-old races this season, highlighted by Capitalist’s Golden Slipper and Magic Millions triumphs.