Racing: Railway king hoping he’s on track

Dragon Leap. Photo / Supplied.

The king of the Railway Handicap thinks he can win it again under different circumstances on Sunday.

Former champion jockey Lance O’Sullivan won the Railway, New Zealand’s glamour sprint, five times in the saddle, but these days trains in partnership with Andrew Scott at Matamata and the pair have Dragon Leap in the great race this week.

It will be a Railway vastly different from the one O’Sullivan dominated as a jockey, most obviously being left-handed as it is at Te Rapa rather than its usual home of Ellerslie, which is undergoing track renovations.

That hasn’t affected the quality of the Railway field, though, which is headed by Levante, who has run fourth in two of the world’s great sprint races this season, and with a speedster support cast including Imperartriz, Babybon Berlin and former Blue Diamond Prelude winner Letzbeglam.

O’Sullivan’s personal Railway haul included two victories on Mr Tiz, the only horse to win three consecutive Railways.

Sunday’s Railway does not contain any of Mr Tiz’s class but is crammed with in-form horses proven on both sides of the Tasman and Dragon Leap is one of those.

Just three starts ago he finished fourth in the A$1 million Memsie Stakes at Caulfield in a race stacked with Group 1 winners, and Dragon Leap has since returned home and blown straight past Babylon Berlin for a stunning 1200m win at Pukekohe.

That was his first victory since the Avondale Guineas in February 2020, with the son of Pierro having had plenty of niggly issues since but having not lost his healthy dollop of pure class, even though he plies his trade in the less taxing sprint races these days.

“He is spot-on so we couldn’t be happier with him,” says O’Sullivan.

“He will need to be because it is a good field and I think he would be better suited to a Railway at Ellerslie, where they are going uphill the last little bit and it can be a bit more testing.

“The way Te Rapa races if the track stays good it could be really hard to catch the leaders.”

Dragon Leap gets a rare chance to race close to those leaders from the ace but that will mean a change of racing pattern as he has barely settled in the first six in any start in his career.

“I think we saw in Melbourne he can do that and it is not impossible he could even trail the leaders but I have learnt not to try and predict big-race tactics too much,” says O’Sullivan. “He will settle where he settles and he will get home hard late.”

Levante is the biggest name who could be disadvantaged if the leaders don’t come back to the swoopers but she was able to stay handier on her way to finishing second to Babylon Berlin in the black-type trials at Matamata last Friday and may be the best horse in the race.

If she can settle anywhere close to midfield from barrier eight she could roar past them late as the last time she started over 1200m in her homeland she beat subsequent two-time Australian Group 1 winner Roch N Horse in a record-run Telegraph at Trentham.

Earlier in the stacked Te Rapa programme, O’Sullivan and Scott look to continue their incredible run of winning major summer three-year-old races when Waitak contests the $140,000 Guineas.

“He is really well, we were happy with his trial last Friday and he is a good three-year-old,” says O’Sullivan.

The stable has won the Guineas the last three years with Dark Destroyer, Rocket Spade and Dragon Leap and after a booming last-start win in the Eagle Memorial, Waitak can make it four on end for Wexford Stables.