Global Weekly Review - 25.01.16

Stars of all descriptions are always welcome at Team Godolphin, and the up and coming Holler is on the verge of earning that accolade if his fine win in Saturday's G2 Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley is any yardstick.

The tight Valley circuit, with its home straight of 173m, the shortest in Australia, doesn't suit every horse, but Holler seems to be a specialist at the track.

He looked very smart when winning the G2 Telstra Phonewords Stakes, over 1,200m there on Cox Plate Day in October, and this follow-up victory, over course and distance, merely reinforced the opinion that he might be a bit special. The big races in the Autumn will test that view.

Holler, a son of successful Darley stallion Commands, is only a three-year-old, yet this was a major win against older opposition, and the colt's record is remarkably consistent. He has won three from eight starts, and has also been placed four times.

Trainer John O'Shea believes the G2 Autumn Stakes at Caulfield in three weeks will be a key race for Holler. "It will really decide which way he goes for the rest of the campaign," O'Shea said.

"He could run after that in the G1 Futurity Stakes, over 1,400m, or he could go for the G3 Vain Stakes, over 1,200m. I am expecting the G2 Autumn Stakes to point us in the right direction," he added.

Speaking of stars, Exosphere, a firmly established one already for Godolphin, is expected to trial soon prior to heading to Melbourne for the G1 Lightning Stakes at Flemington next month. "It is not far away now, and he is going well at home," O'Shea reported.

If there has been a feeling that racing Down Under has been featuring all things New Zealand in the past few days, it is no surprise. Saturday's G2 Wellington Cup was a fantastic race in which former British stayer Mister Impatience outstayed Pentathlon to win the NZ$200,000 race, while the Karaka Million, a Listed contest at Ellerslie, Auckland, was won by the unbeaten Xiong Feng, a two-year-old son of Darley shuttle stallion Iffraaj.

Mister Impatience, a son of Hernando, started his racing career with Mark Johnston in the North of England, and gradually became a useful handicapper. Arguably his best performance in the UK was a second to Gospel Choir in a Goodwood handicap, over a mile and a half.

He then joined Mike Moroney in Australia. He did not run for 20 months, an absence that stretched from his last run in Britain, to his first in Sydney. On his second outing Down Under, he beat only one home in the Herbert Power Handicap at Caulfield.

A switch to New Zealand followed, and on his fifth outing there, he landed the coveted G2 Wellington Cup. The recent switch back to 3,200 metres suited him as he was headed in the home straight and fought extremely hard to regain the lead and win narrowly.

The 90th National Yearling Sales started on Monday, 25th January with the first lot, a bay colt by another Darley stallion, Exceed and Excel, going under the hammer for NZ$300,000. This set the tone for six days of sales, at which records are expected to be broken.