2023 PB Lawrence Stakes Results: Cox Plate Hope Mr Brightside Salutes First-Up
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A half-brother to former Australian thoroughbred star and dual Cox Plate champion So You Think, Elusive City colt Now You Know is preparing to make their race debut for Flemington trainer Danny O’Brien at their home track this weekend.
Out of the same dam as five time Group 1 winner So You Think, Tights mare Triassic, the unraced Now You Know is set to contest the $70,000 SecondBite Plate (1400m) at Flemington on Saturday.
Regular rider aboard So You Think during his last spring campaign in Australia, jockey Steven Arnold may be all but out of contention to ride So You Think in Europe but he will get to take the mount on younger brother Now You Know on Saturday.
Now You Know was purchased for $260,000 at New Zealand’s Karaka sale, a bargain if the colt is able to reproduce just some of $5.6 million earner So You Think’s awesome ability.
“He is a very nice horse but still immature and certainly he’s going to improve a lot as a three-year-old,” O’Brien said.
“He is a 2000-metre horse in the making hence he’s running first-up over 1400 metres, but I’ve been happy with his development so far and we are hoping that he can show us some good signs on Saturday.”
If Now You Know produces a good career launch on Saturday, O’Brien will begin looking towards the spring features.
“Ideally he will have this run and maybe one more and if he shows enough we could then set him for some targets in the spring,” O’Brien said.
“He has just got to justify if he is up and about and good enough.”
In the field of 13 two-year-olds in the Flemington race, Michael Kent’s Mossman colt Backbone is the only other runner on debut while O’Brien also lines up his promising Blue Sapphire Stakes runner-up and Cranbourne winner The New Boy.
Rock Of Gibraltar gelding The New Boy won a 1000m maiden on debut on April 10 before backing up 20 days later to come within a nose of victory, trounced in the final stride by City Of Song in the Listed Blue Sapphire Stakes (1200m) on April 30.
“He is the stable elect,” O’Brien said of The New Boy.
“He knows what it is all about and should have won both his starts so I am expecting him to be hard to beat.”
Two other non-maidens are in the race with the Peter Snowden-trained duo of Burnout and Euryale, a colt and filly both by boom sire Lonhro.
The former Bart Cummings-trained son of High Chaparral So You Think won their debut race in May of 2009 before continuing on to become one of the most loved Aussie gallopers in recent years.
So You Think was sold for a record sum to Coolmore Stud in Ireland following his third to Americain in last year’s iconic Melbourne Cup showdown, and recently made his European debut.
Now trained by Aidan O’Brien, So You Think was in a class of his own when demolishing his rivals by 10 lengths in the Group 3 Mooresbridge Stakes (2011m) at The Curragh earlier in the week.
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