The Epsom Handicap is off the agenda, but the $10 million Golden Eagle is firmly in Gerald Ryan’s sights with sprinter-miler Skyhook.
The four-year-old resumes in the Group 2 Theo Marks Stakes (1300m) at Rosehill on Saturday, the timing of his return all but burying any chance of him contesting the Epsom Handicap (1600m) three weeks later.
“He won’t get to the Epsom. If he runs Saturday here then he’d have to run again in the Shannon (Stakes) and back up. He’s not a back-up horse,” Ryan said.
“The main aim is to get him to the Golden Eagle. It’s just how we get there.
“The horse doesn’t cop heaps of work, but I will have to give him three of four runs prior to going there.”
The first step on that road is the Theo Marks Stakes where he has drawn the outside barrier in15.
However, given Skyhook’s natural gate speed, Ryan doesn’t see it as an insurmountable hurdle, and says the horse is carrying residual fitness from a Queensland winter carnival campaign and is forward enough to win.
While he has always been a quality horse, claiming the Pago Pago Stakes at two and contesting the Golden Slipper, Skyhook underlined his class at the end of his three-year-old season when he captured the Hawkesbury Guineas (1400m) and was dominant in the Gunsynd Classic (1600m) at Eagle Farm.
Ryan attributes it to some tweaks in his training regime that are helping Skyhook consistently produce at Group level.
“Between the Arrowfield (3YO Sprint) and Hawkesbury Guineas, I changed a few things with his training, and it really worked,” Ryan said.
“I started working him sharper, and just did some things like jumped him over a couple of hurdles.
“He’s pretty forward. He only had nineteen days off then three weeks of pre-training at Newington Farm with (former horse trainer) Kacy Fogden. She looked after him up there and he came back in really good order, and he’s had the two good trials as well.”
Just Party has been scratched from the Theo Marks and will instead head to Saturday’s Listed Tontonan Stakes (1400m) at Flemington, a circuit Ryan expects the backmarker to relish.
As a first-up winner of the Goulburn Cup (1400m), Just Party is qualified for the Big Dance (1600m) on Melbourne Cup Day, although connections are lukewarm on pursuing that target.
“We always thought he’d run a journey, and he’s been placed over 1600 metres a couple of times, but we’ve decided to train him as a shorter course horse and see how he goes,” Ryan said.
“It’s his second preparation as a gelding as well. That can make a difference.
“He’ll come home after Saturday. There’s nothing else down there for him for a couple of weeks, so we’ll bring him home and decide after that.”
Just Party was rated a $4.20 chance for the Tontonan Stakes on Thursday, with Skyhook heading markets for the Theo Marks Stakes as a $3 favourite.
