Randwick treble highlights Godolphin’s stellar Australian season

Godolphin’s Australian stable showed it was heading into the country’s major spring racing season in superlative form with three winners at Randwick on Saturday.

With only two more city meetings before the season ends on 1 August, the Godolphin team led by head trainer James Cummings has already established a 20 per cent winners-to-runners ratio, the best of any major Australian stable.

And the wins of the talented two-year-old Plague Stone, Gaulois and Bandipur at Randwick suggested the stunning form maintained throughout the season can be carried through to the new season.

Plague Stone had already shown great promise before Saturday’s breakthrough victory in the ungraded Rosebud Prelude.

And the colt lived up to it, cruising to a half-length win under Hugh Bowman over Witherspoon and The Tenor.

The stable’s second winner, Gaulois (Jim Collett), had been racing well in Melbourne and proved her trainer’s judgement to be on the mark by returning to Sydney to claim his fourth career win in the TAB Rewards Handicap.

The treble was completed by Bandipur (Hugh Bomwan) who fought his way to a narrow but courageous win in the Benchmark 80 Handicap.

The Australian stable has produced 226 wins for the season and its runners earning have earned more than A$15.5 million.

Cummings said: “I’m absolutely thrilled for the team who has worked tirelessly to achieve a fantastic result for Sheikh Mohammed this season.”

“We are clearly in good shape as the major races approach in the new season and we‘re looking forward to another great year.”

Cummings-trained Godolphin runners won five G1 races in the 2017-18 season.

While one of those winners, Impending, has been retired to stud, his fellow G1 stars Hartnell, Alizes and Kementari are back in training and are due to re-appear over the next two months.