By Alan Carasso
Despite entering a Wednesday Class 1 handicap over the Sha Tin dirt track first-up for 4 1/2 months and forced to carry 132 pounds against some classy rivals, Gun Pit (Aus) (Dubawi {Ire}) turned in a record-setting performance to take his mark to a perfect seven-from-seven over the course and could make his next start in the ¥196-million (US$1.59 million) G1 Champions Cup at Chukyo Racecourse Dec. 6.
Sent off the 1.6 (3-5) odds-on favorite, Gun Pit jumped on terms from his low draw and was able to maintain an inside position from there from a midfield berth through the middle stages. Asked to creep closer by Zac Purton on the final turn, Gun Pit found daylight three away from the inside leaving the last corner, descended on the front-runners and pulled readily clear to score by two convincing lengths. Eroico (Aus) (Starcraft {NZ}), hammered into 11-1 in the final minutes, came on for second (video). The final time of 1:36.34 for the 1650 meters smashed his own track record by 1.02 seconds, though each of the first six home clocked a time equal to or better than the previous best of 1:37.36.
“We'll see how he pulls up in the next couple of days and then we'll make a decision about whether we go forward to the race in Japan. That's the plan,” said winning trainer Caspar Fownes, who has successfully travelled horses such as Lucky Nine (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) overseas. “It was very impressive today, again carrying a big weight (132 pounds), and breaking his record, in fact smashing it by over a second. He's a very exciting horse on the surface and now we've just got to see–we'll look forward to bigger and better things with him. This horse is only getting there now.”
Though each of Gun Pit's previous seven victories had come over this extended one-mile trip–including one on the grass at Happy Valley–Fownes is of the opinion that the gelding will stay further, even if he is not without some concerns.
“I don't think the [1800-meter] distance of the Champions Cup will be a problem, he was strong to the line there,” said Fownes. “The only thing is the Japanese dirt surface is going to be a big question mark. It's totally different to anything he's experienced here. At the end of the day we have to take him and try because he's a very good horse. The future definitely holds something like Dubai in March–that would be the target.”
A grandson of G1 Dubai World Cup hero Dubai Millennium (GB), Gun Pit, an A$65,000 purchase out of the 2012 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, is out of a mare by Ali-Royal (Ire) (Royal Academy), whose half-sister Oonagh Maccool (Ire) (Giant's Causeway) became an important dirt runner in the United States. Her victories included the GII Rampart H. and GII Louisville Breeders' Cup H. in 2006. @EquinealTDN
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.