Michael Hickmott can find plenty of reasons why Ole Go won’t win Saturday’s Listed Without Fear Stakes but he’s hoping the colt can show him the one simple reason why he can – that he’s something special.
The untapped two-year-old comfortably defeated three rivals, including subsequent VOBIS Showdown winner Big Wigs, at his only start at Morphettville in January, after which Hickmott gave him a short let-up in order to shift his focus to feature races during the autumn.
The Without Fear is the first of those feature races, with the G3 Breeders Stakes and the G3 David Coles Stakes also on the radar.
Hickmott thinks Ole Go is pretty smart, although he expects him to improve with more racing and over further than the 1050m of Saturday’s race.
With Bet365, Ole Go is the equal $2.50 favourite alongside last-start Dequetteville Stakes winner Never Ordinary.
“He had a little break and he had that one trial last week which he was good in,” Hickmott said.
“He’s not screwed down so from that point of view, I’d expect him to get better as the Carnival goes on.”
“He’s got a massive stride length on him and I think he’s going to be better at 1200m for sure.”
“His biggest problem is his lack of exposure at the moment, both to a big field and genuine raceday pressure.
“Cozy’s filly (Never Ordinary) has had that hard seasoning to her and she’s going to be very hard to beat.”
Hickmott is also toying with the idea of launching White Pointer’s career in the Without Fear, although he expects the youngster to need the outing.
He said feature 1400m races like the Sires Produce and the Oaklands Plate are on the radar for the son of Spirit Of Boom.
“I really like the horse and I think he’s going to be a lovely Sires Produce horse,” he said.
“He maps to get a really nice run behind them and I’d expect him to be finishing off hard but he’s going to be much better when he get to races like the Sires and the Oaklands Plate.”
