Unbeaten Sobek ready for city test

Scott Singleton has learned to stop being surprised by Sobek and the Scone trainer is excited about unleashing him on the metropolitan stage this weekend.

The unbeaten gelding will have his first city start at this Saturday’s season-opening meeting at Rosehill.

Sobek has been nominated for two 1200-metre races, the $160,000 benchmark 72 restricted to three and four-year-olds and the $120,000 Class 3 Highway, with Singleton leaning towards a start in the latter.

He will be chasing a fourth-straight win to start his career, having won twice on his home track this time in after a maiden win at Taree in January, and Singleton admits to being surprised he has got to city grade so swiftly.

“It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before his first trial that he actually started to show us anything at home and he’s just kept getting better as he’s gone along,” Singleton said.

“He’s had five trials and three starts and won everything, he hasn’t been beaten yet in a trial or a race, so obviously he knows how to win, which is a big tick for any horse.

“I just feel like he’s strong enough and probably got enough race craft now to go down for a Highway and be pretty hard to beat.”

Sobek, who turns four on Saturday, is a son of Vinery stallion Headwater from a female family that traces back to Saintly.

Sobek’s dam Holy Empress is out of Holy One, who was a daughter of the Woodman mare Pure Grace, a half-sister to the former Bart Cummings-trained superstar.

Sobek’s performances to date have been in races well short of ones in which Saintly made his name, with a 900m win sandwiched between two 1000m victories, but Singleton is adamant he is not a short-course specialist.

A 4-1/2-length win in a 1200m Muswellbrook trial on July 15 convinced him he was ready to tackle that distance on raceday.

“Even though he’s won over 900 and 1000, I think he will be better over 1200,” Singleton said.

“I just wanted him to show us at the trials the other day that he’d be strong through the line over the 1200 and he was, he just kept galloping, so I’ll be going there confident that he’s in the right order.”

Singleton has not planned anything beyond Saturday with Sobek, but he would be delighted if he is forced to start thinking even bigger after this weekend.

“I’m just happy for him to tell us how he fits into the scheme of things,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have him in front of another horse of mine, Lord Remlap, as a Kosciuszko-type of horse, but I’m open to the fact he might surprise me again on the weekend.

“When they’re improving you don’t know where that improvement stops, do you?”

The $2 million The Kosciuszko, a 1200m race restricted to horses trained in regional New South Wales, will be run at Randwick on The Everest Day, October 17.