Scott Singleton has learned not to be surprised by Sobek’s performances and is looking forward to unleashing the undefeated gelding on the city stage this weekend.
Sobek is set to make his metropolitan debut at Saturday’s season-opening meeting at Rosehill. The promising four-year-old has been nominated for two 1200-metre races: the $160,000 Benchmark 72 for three and four-year-olds, and the $120,000 Class 3 Highway Handicap, with Singleton favouring the latter.
He will be vying for his fourth consecutive win to commence his career, following two victories at Scone this preparation and a maiden win at Taree in January. Singleton confessed he did not expect the gelding to progress through the grades so quickly.
“It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before his first trial that he actually started to show us anything at home and he’s just kept getting better as he’s gone along,” Singleton said. “He’s had five trials and three starts and won everything, he hasn’t been beaten yet in a trial or a race, so obviously he knows how to win, which is a big tick for any horse.
“I just feel like he’s strong enough and probably got enough race craft now to go down for a Highway and be pretty hard to beat.”
Sobek, who turns four on Saturday, is a son of Vinery stallion Headwater, with his dam Holy Empress being out of Holy One. Holy One is a daughter of the Woodman mare Pure Grace, who was a half-sister to the former Bart Cummings-trained champion Saintly.
While Sobek’s three wins have come over 900 and 1000 metres, Singleton firmly believes the gelding will be even better over 1200 metres. A dominant 4-1/2-length victory in a 1200m trial at Muswellbrook on July 15 provided the trainer with the confidence that he was ready for the step up in distance.
“Even though he’s won over 900 and 1000, I think he will be better over 1200,” Singleton stated. “I just wanted him to show us at the trials the other day that he’d be strong through the line over the 1200 and he was, he just kept galloping, so I’ll be going there confident that he’s in the right order.”
Singleton has not mapped out a long-term campaign for Sobek, but admitted that a strong showing on Saturday could lead to bigger ambitions.
“I’m just happy for him to tell us how he fits into the scheme of things,” he said. “I wouldn’t have him in front of another horse of mine, Lord Remlap, as a The Kosciuszko-type of horse, but I’m open to the fact he might surprise me again on the weekend.
“When they’re improving you don’t know where that improvement stops, do you?”
The $2 million The Kosciuszko, a 1200-metre race restricted to horses trained in regional New South Wales, is scheduled to be run at Randwick on The Everest Day on October 17.
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