The front running The Holy One is still at long double figure odds for the 2019 Caulfield Guineas despite leading all of the way to win the Group 2 $200,000 MSC Signs Stutt Stakes (1600m) at The Valley last night.
Winning jockey Brett Prebble had no hesitation in taking The Holy One straight to the front from barrier one in the seven horse field and dictated the pace in the early and middle stages before letting the Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young trained colt up the pace from the 600m.
Prebble had The Holy One ($9) three lengths clear on the home turn and the colt held on in the run to the line to record a half a length win over the Colin Little trained Vegas Knight ($4.80).
The Lindsay Park trained Conqueror ($6.50) surged to the line to claim third place while his stablemate, the $3.30 favourite Power Scheme, was last across the line.
Despite an all the way win in the Stutt Stakes, The Holy One is still at the juicy odds of $41 at Ladbrokes.com.au for the Group 1 $2m Ladbrokes Caulfield Guineas (1600m) at Caulfield on October 12.
Busuttin is keen to run The Holy One in the Caulfield Guineas but in the long term the Cranbourne based Kiwi trainer can see the Tavistock colt being set for one of the Derbies later in his three year old year.
“I think in time he’ll be wanting more ground and even the Guineas might be a bit short but you’ve got to go there now after tonight’s win,” Busuttin said.
“He’s a Tavistock and we love them and his pedigree suggests he’ll get longer but we didn’t want to get him to the derby this spring so we’ll put all our efforts into winning the Guineas.”
The Holy One’s win in the Stutt Stakes was the second leg of a winning double for the Busuttin – Young stable after they took out the first race on the program, the ProPunterAlert.com Plate (1200m) for the three year old Colts and geldings, with Barcali.