Trekking lands a second G1 at The Goodwood Handicap Stakes

Class and determination carried Trekking to the second G1 victory of his career over one of the best The Goodwood Handicap fields in decades at Morphettville on Saturday.

In a performance that gave Godolphin its fourth, worldwide G1 win for the year and set the stage for another top-level success, Trekking barged into the clear at the 200m to set out after the favourite Gytrash who had sprinted clear.

With 50m to run he still had a length to make up, but he responded to jockey John Allen’s call, lunging at Gytrash in the final stride to win by a half-head.

Godolphin’s G1-winning filly Lyre ran on strongly to finish third.

“That puts an exclamation mark on our Adelaide campaign,” said trainer James Cummings. He’s a class horse and he needed to show it today.”

“We’ve seen some good performances in the Godolphin colours today, the wind is in our sails.”

“Reg Fleming and the team in Melbourne have looked after him very-very well and they’ve presented him in fabulous order today,” he said.

The runner-up Gytrash was one of five G1 winners in the Goodwood, and Trekking, son of the inimitable Street Cry, reigned supreme over them all, setting himself up for another tilt at next month’s G1 Stradbroke Handicap in Brisbane.

And the signs are positive that he can repeat success which followed his win exactly 12 months ago in the Listed Luskin Star Stakes at Scone, a race won on Saturday by the Godolphin runner Ranier who is also a possibly Stradbroke runner.

Ranier’s win, in the race run this year at Rosehill, was the third in succession for Godolphin, following those of Osborne Bulls in 2018 and Trekking last year.

“It’s three weeks out from the Stradbroke and the horse is going to be arriving down on the limit and he’s going to be in winning form, so there’s a lot to like about that,” said Cummings.

After taking a closer-than-usual position, Ranier raced clear over the final 100m to Brave Song and Eleven Eleven.

Cummings said Ranier shaped as the stable’s “dark horse” for the season’s remaining feature races.

“It is right up there for a progressive handicapper on the way through and while Ranier has a long way to go before he proves himself to be in the same echelon as Osborne Bulls and Trekking, one thing he is, is a dark horse,” Cummings said.

Meanwhile, progressive four-year-old Nature’s Colors and G3 winner Impulsif provide Godolphin with a strong challenge for the mile G3 Prix Bertrand du Breuil at Chantilly, France, on Monday.

Both horses are trained by Andre Fabre, with Nature’s Colors (Mickael Barzalona) making his first Group-race appearance following a decisive success in the extended seven-furlong Listed Prix Altipan on Polytrack at Deauville in March.

The Poet’s Voice colt has only tasted defeat once in four starts, following up a debut fifth at Deauville in August with easy wins over a mile at Lyon-Parilly and Compiegne in the autumn.

Impulsif (Vincent Cheminaud) made all to comfortably score in the G3 Prix Messidor at Deauville in August – one of three mile victories for the five-year-old last season.

The son of New Approach also started his season on the All-Weather, finishing third in a mile conditions race at Chantilly at the start of March.

Lisa-Jane Graffard of Godolphin said: “Impulsif and Nature’s Colors go into this race in good form, but it is a very competitive G3 with some G1 performers, as well as some really tough campaigners who have run several times this year already.

“Nature’s Colors has shown his best form on slower ground, while Impulsif ran a shade disappointingly here last time, so we will need to see some improvement on that.”

Agencies