The lightly race Devil Hawk is back on the Group 1 trail after scoring a gutsy win in the Group 3 $125,000 Coca-Cola Spring Stakes (1600m) at Newcastle today.
Devil Hawk, the younger brother of Queensland Derby winner Hawkspur came from near the back of the seven horse field to slice between runners at the 250m to tackle the tiring leader Clash Of Clans.
Winning jockey Tye Angland was then able to keep the colt balanced and held off the challenge of the Paul Perry trained Tatoosh ($6) by a head with third placegetter Gold Ambition ($7) a further short neck away.
The Chris Waller trained Devil Hawk was sent out as one of the outsiders of the field at $13 while stablemate Wudang Mountain was well supported to start the $2.35 favourite.
Wudang Mountain was given the run of the race by Hugh Bowman but only plodded to wind up in fourth spot.
Devil Hawk is among the nominations for the Group 1 $500,000 Moet & Chandon Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on October 10 and Angland said that the colt will have no trouble running out the 2000m of the Spring Carnival feature for the three year olds.
“He is a horse that is looking for further,” Angland said.
Angland said that everything went to plan through the race and Devil Hawk travelled smoothly for him before he made his move at the top of the straight.
At the 250m Devil Hawk was able to get his head in front and responded well when Angland finally went for the whip.
“He is a horse that strives on confidence and likes everything going smoothly for him as it did first up,” Angland said.
“Today we had the perfect run, the pace was on. We come out when we wanted to, but he didn’t flatten out real well. He quickened up enough and he is still learning how to gallop so that is really going to improve on that.”
“I thought I was beaten at the 100m and once I finally pulled the whip through and just give him one to straighten back up because he was floating, so to speak. It was a good win.”
Today’s win was Devil Hawk’s second win from six starts after he scored his maiden win three starts back in a 1250m Canterbury Maiden on August 12.
