Sydney’s newest feature, the AUD2,000,000 Big Dance (1600m), is squarely in the crosshairs of China Horse Club and partners after two key wins in a weekend of notable international results that included:
Surf Dancer, already qualified for the lucrative Big Dance after his success in the South Grafton Cup in July, confirmed he is on track for the AUD2,000,000 event when delivering a career best performance to land the AUD250,000 G2 Shannon Stakes (1500m) a contest that has historically been used as a key leadup to Australia’s premier spring mile contest – the time honoured G1 Epsom Handicap.
Cognac, also secured his entry into the Big Dance when shouldering 60kg to an effortless win in the AUD50,000 Bathurst Cup. There are a total of 20 country races across New South Wales that guarantee automatic qualification in the Big Dance, the Bathurst Cup was the fourth last of these before the feature is run on Melbourne Cup Day at Randwick (1st November 2022).
Adrian Bott, who co-trains Surf Dancer with Gai Waterhouse, was highly positive in his post-race assessment of the gelding and reiterated his stable’s focus on the Big Dance.
“It was always the plan to get him back, give him a good freshen up and a couple of runs into the Big Dance. It’s the first inception of the race this year, he’s got the qualification and it’s worth a lot of money. We’ll look to go that way,” Bott said.
“It’s good to see him proven at this class. We threw him in the deep end coming here today. He has responded very well.
“[Surf Dancer] looked excellent. He retained plenty of residual fitness off that short turnaround so we were confident he was forward enough for the 1500m. We were able to get to that nice spot outside the leader with the 53kg. Thought he was going to be hard to run down.”
Co-trainers Adrian Bott and Gai Waterhouse are delighted with Surf Dancer this preparation
The results of Surf Dancer and Cognac were a prelude to other positive results in the United States from Let Her Inspire U and Falconet. The former delivering a clinical display to win a USD90,000 Allowance Optional Claiming race (1600m) at Belmont at the Big A, while the latter was immensely brave in her first run back from in more than two months when touched out by only a neck in the USD160,000 Seneca Overnight Stakes. For the second successive start Falconet secured valuable black type.
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