Racing: Vigor Winner goes for back-to-back

Vigor Winner runs at Eagle Farm on Saturday. Photo / Race Images

Last start Group Three winner Vigor Winner will be vying for more stakes success when he tackles the Gr.3 Fred Best Classic (1400m) at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

The Lauren Brennan-trained galloper has been consistent in his four career starts, recording three victories and a runner-up performance in the Gr.2 Wellington Guineas (1400m).

"He's a very smart horse and very talented. He probably should have won that race (Wellington Guineas), he just got held up at the top of the turn," Brennan said.

The son of Declaration of War will jump from barrier 15 under jockey Blake Shinn and Brennan is hoping her gelding can overcome his wide gate.

"He's quite a versatile horse," she said. "He usually jumps very well in his races, but his last start, in the Cambridge Breeders' Stakes (Gr.3, 1200m), he missed the kick.

"There was a horse playing up beside him and he was concentrating more on that than the gates opening.

"He then came wide in that race, so he is quite versatile."

Brennan said Vigor Winner worked well on Tuesday morning and both trainer and jockey are confident heading into the 1400m feature. "It's a lot tougher than what we are used to back home, it's going to be a pretty smart field.

"He has shown that he has earned his way there, so we will have a crack, they are only three once."

● Cambridge trainer Tony Pike might be enjoying a purple patch across the Tasman, but yesterday he unearthed a filly on the home-front that looks destined to go to the upper grades.

Two-year-old filly Loire relished the Dead4 track presented at Hawke's Bay and closed from well back in the field to win the Nufarm 2YO (1200m) impressively under a hold in the hands of jockey Michael McNab.

The daughter of Redoute's Choice is a half-sister to Group One winner A Touch Of Ruby and finished seventh on debut behind Avadane at Matamata, but showed her gears when successful at second time of asking.

Pike's good run continued when Sacred Judgment took out the final event at Hawke's Bay, the Fruitfed Supplies (1300m) when leading throughout.

- NZ Racing Desk