Rising star Spacecraft turned in one of the wins of the day when he came with a long, sustained run for a brilliant victory at Moonee Valley on Saturday.
The Galileo entire scored what was best described as an arrogant win – his second straight success following an impressive on speed success in the listed Penny Edition Stakes in Adelaide.
Spacecraft is a very progressive galloper according to his new trainer Mick Price and said the Group One Toorak Handicap is firmly in his sights.
“It was a pretty gutsy effort wasn’t it,” Price said. “I was happy to see Damien (Oliver) improve inside the 1200 – but he had to work and work and work.”
“I’m glad the horse has one of those long winded motors in him to take him to the line.”
“He’s a beautiful animal to train. If you look at him you can see he’d do better with more weight on him – and he’ll have that in the autumn.”
“Hopefully we can get his rating up this spring and have some fun and have a really good autumn with him.”
But prior to the autumn Spacecraft has at least a couple more runs in him during the spring carnival.
“There’s another mile race here at Moonee Valley in 13 days time,” Price said. “And if he was to win that I’d probably run him in the Toorak.”
“That enables us to keep him fresh and keep the weight on him. I don’t think he’s quite mature enough to step up to 2000 metres yet.”
“I think there’s some nice races for him in the autumn. Until then I think we’ll just enjoy winning.”
Senior part owner Peter Caporn purchased Spacecraft for $85,000 from the Racetree draft at the 2008 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
As it stands the outstanding four-year-old sire prospect has won over $206,000 from just 10 starts.
Spacecraft is one of four winners, from four runners, produced by the city winning Octagonal mare Demanding.
A half sister to Victory Dash and daughter of Analie Handicap winner Winged Prayer, Demanding is also the dam of the multiple stakes winner and Derby placegetter Phenomenons.
Demanding is also the dam of the five time Perth winner Demands Attention and the twice stakes race fourth placegetter Cause for Demand.
Hers is the family of the former champion two-year-old Tierce – a winner of 11 races and over $2.2 million.
The latest yearling produced by Demanding, a bay filly by Danehill’s record breaking son Rock of Gibraltar, has been entered by the Racetree team for January’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.