When Poly Oreos walked through the stable doors for the first time, he had stayer written all over him, his feet said wet tracker, this was all backed up by his pedigree. A New Zealand staying family, filled with distance horses and mud larks and it was fair to say he previously hadn't had much of a chance at a former stable, never stepping out over any further than 1400m and all were on good tracks .
We had a lot of work a head with this rangey big 16.2hh gelding, visually he didn't have a lot going for him, but there was potential you could see that. A lot of long slow work, he built up well, his coat produced dapples on dapples and this beautiful big gelding sprung into life. A soft trial was the starting point, next a run over 1150m at Beaumont where he ran on well from the rear to finish 5th, next we headed to Hawkesbury to get the miles under his belt, he ran on from the rear again to finish 3rd over 1300m, next start read disappointing but it was far from it, the gelding was screaming out for distance, a week later he backed up at Canberra over 2000m on a soft 7, up in grade facing class 1 runners, he wasn't fancied by the fans at all, but the all knew they were in trouble when jockey John Kissick angled out turning for home. The big boy surged to the front, ears pricked not knowing what to do next, wining easily by 1.3 lengths, an outstanding ride and the comments to follow were positive. He is a stayer to follow for the future, he is still very green and needs even further than 2000m. He will head towards a 2600m race at Gosford on the 12th of April.
It was very exciting to share this with family friend George Baloukeserlis, who attended the race meeting with his new son Harry along with his wife Pauline and her sister Eleni, unfortunately another one of Polys owners and new client to the stable George Bedwani wasn't able to make the trip to Canberra as he had a runner in a feature race at Rosehill, Montaigne finished second in the group one Rosehill Gunieas, what a fabulous day out for him.