Old stager Temple Of Boom will return to racing in the Group 3 $150,000 Aurie’s Star Handicap (1200m) at Flemington on August 8.
Temple Of Boom will resume in the Aurie’s Star Handicap at Flemington. Photo by Daniel Costello.
Temple Of Boom will be a nine year old when he arrives in Melbourne for his sixth Spring Carnival campaign but trainer Tony Gollan believes he can still perform competitively at the top level.
“Temple will soon be a nine-year-old, but you wouldn’t know it,’’ Gollan told The Courier-Mail.
“We have changed things up a bit for him and he has had a good life going to the beach a lot recently.”
Gollan has selected the Group 1 $400,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on August 29 as one of Temple Of Boom’s main Spring missions and he will head to Melbourne by road next week after trialling at Randwick on Friday.
Gollan explained that he has mixed up Temple Of Boom’s preparation with a stopover in Sydney where he has already had a trial at Rosehill for a second over 900m on July 21.
“I have had more time this year to prepare him for a Melbourne campaign so I sent him to Sydney by float and he will also make the trip to Melbourne by road,” Gollan said.
“He got a bit tired in his first trial but will be better for that and I’m looking forward to seeing him in his second trial on Friday.’’
Gollan, who has just wrapped up his second Brisbane trainer’s premiership, said that he would be looking for a local Melbourne jockey to partner Temple Of Boom when he resumes next week.
Tegan Harrison had been Temple Of Boom’s regular rider for the last twelve months with the pair stepping out together on ten occasions before Michael Rodd took over for his last two runs during the 2015 Brisbane Winter Carnival.
Rodd partnered the veteran sprinter to a creditable fourth to Srikandi in the Group 1 $2m AAMI Stradbroke Handicap (1350m) at Doomben on June 6 but the Melbourne Cup winning jockey is riding in Singapore at the moment.
“At this stage I’m not sure who will be riding him,” Gollan said.
‘’Michael Rodd is busy in Singapore, so I will probably put out some feelers for a Victorian jockey.”
Temple Of Boom has mixed it with the best sprinters in the country since winning the Group 1 $350,000 Canterbury BMW Galaxy (1100m) at Rosehill during the 2012 Autumn Carnival.
While he has been unable to return to the Group 1 winner’s stall since, he has been placed twice in the Doomben 10,000 (1350m) in 2012 and again behind his stablemate Spirit Of Boom in 2014 and was then beaten by the narrowest of margins when second to River Lad in the Stradbroke Handicap.
