Photo: Peter Rubery (Race Images Palmerston North)
Exciting two-year-old prospect Poetic Champion produced an emphatic first victory for young Waikato Stud stallion Super Seth at Hawera on Saturday.
Prepared by Cambridge trainer Tony Pike, Poetic Champion exuded confidence in the birdcage before the 950m contest and he looked every part the professional from the jump, striding up to sit outside the leader and race-favourite Cognoscenti through the running.
The imposing chestnut travelled seamlessly under a hold into the home straight and bounded to the lead for jockey Craig Grylls when he released the gelding, displaying a dashing turn-of-foot to score by an extending six-and-a-quarter lengths.
“He’s a real little beauty, he knows what he’s here for and he’s been a dude from day one,” Pike stable representative Mark Hills said.
“From his trial at Cambridge, his turn of foot was good and his jump-out the other day was good, he’s a real little professional.”
Grylls couldn’t have been more impressed with the two-year-old in his race-day debut, which followed a sharp trial win on the Cambridge synthetic track last month.
“He jumped really good and sat outside the leader, he was travelling well but once I straightened him up and gave him a squeeze he absolutely took off,” he said.
“He’s not big but he’s quite well put together and strong for his size, he’s a very nice little galloper.”
Poetic Champion was passed in when not reaching his $80,000 reserve at the 2023 Karaka Yearling Sales, which saw the gelding’s breeders GSA Bloodstock, who were also the previous owners of Super Seth, retain full ownership.
The two-year-old produced shades of his sire’s devastating finishing sprint when claiming the 2019 Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m), bolting home to defeat eventual six-time Group One-winner Alligator Blood.
Super Seth’s impressive record for trainer Anthony Freedman also included victories in the Gr.3 McNeil Stakes (1200m), Gr.3 Manfred Stakes (1200m), and a runner-up finish in the Gr.1 Futurity Stakes (1400m) against the older horses in his three-year-old season.
A son of Dundeel, Super Seth was retired to Waikato Stud in 2020 and stands at the Matamata nursery for a fee of $35,000, Poetic Champion’s victory rewarding the belief that stud principal Mark Chittick had in the stallion from the beginning.
“It was just amazing,” Chittick said.
“It will be four years ago next week that Super Seth won the Caulfield Guineas and beat the unbeaten Alligator Blood, and immediately after that there was a move made between myself and Mike Rennie to secure him, because I felt like he was just the right horse that we wanted to be breeding racehorses by.
“The deal between Jonathan Munz (GSA Bloodstock) and Dean Hawthorne (bloodstock agent) went through smoothly, but it involved a hell of a lot of money and the last four years we’ve been under intense pressure, today we hope was the start of what we believe in.
“We’ve always had the most belief in him because he’s the sort of horse that makes a great stallion and that was the ultimate start.
“It’s only early days, but what we’ve seen and heard so far is just what we wanted.”
