Stout Hearted was one of four winners for the day for premiership trainer Chris Waller when the five year old took out the Group 3 $125,000 Cellarbrations Kingston Town Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill today.

Stout Hearted's win in the Group 3 Kingston Town Stakes was trainer Chris Waller's fourth winner of the day at Rosehill. Photo by: Steve Hart

Waller took out the first two races of the day with High On Believing and Arinosa and ended the day with Velrosso taking out the last while Stout Hearted maintained his good recent form with a solid win for Glyn Schofield.

The heavily back favourite Strawberry Boy strode to the front for Tommy Berry and led the field into the straight before Shcofield secured an inside run to dash through to claim victory over the fast finishing Crafty Irna with Strawberry Boy holding on for third.

Waller is uncertain if he will push ahead towards the Group 1 $400,000 The Metropolitan (2400m) at Randwick on October 6 saying that Stout Hearted is still a preparation away from his best.

“It was a great ride from Glyn. He’s very good with these types of horses. He put the horse to sleep, took an inside run and got to the front early and maintained his margin,” Waller said.

“I think he’s still a preparation away really and he’s been up a long time and it’s hard to be targeting one of those races or a Group 1 race at the end of a prep so we’ll just wait and see.”

Schofield was standing in for regular rider Nathan Berry and couldn’t believe his luck when the gap opened up in the straight, giving him a clear run to the line.

“I felt like Moses there with the parting of the Red Sea. From where I was in the run, hoping that things would work out for me, sometimes you bite the bullet and hope for the best and it happens, sometimes it doesn’t,” Schofield said.

“This horse surprised me when I let him go and got there way too soon. What an impressive horse he is.”

Schofield compared Stout Hearted to Waller’s well performed Hawk Island who on to be Group 1 placed on two occasions.