Dragon Leap with Warren Kennedy on board winning at Te Rapa in September. Photo / Supplied
The new hero of New Zealand’s jockey ranks has been handed a shot at one of racing’s toughest doubles.
Fresh from his record seven-win bag at Pukekohe on New Year’s Day, Warren Kennedy will partner favourite Dragon Leap in the $450,000 Telegraph at Trentham on Saturday.
That will come just 12 days after Kennedy rode Dragon Leap’s stablemate Waitak to a spectacular victory in the Sistema Railway at Pukekohe, the other of New Zealand’s iconic 1200m sprints.
While jockeys have won both in the same season before, few have done it on two different horses.
The last was Mark Du Plessis in 2014, when he won the Railway on Bounding before winning the Telegraph on Irish Fling.
Wonderful sprinting mare Avantage won both races in 2021 but with two different jockeys, Opie Bosson riding her at Ellerslie and Danielle Johnson at Trentham.
Co-trainer Lance O’Sullivan confirmed Kennedy’s booking yesterday and says he and partner Andrew Scott are confident they will be legging Kennedy up onto a fully fit Dragon Leap come Saturday.
“He is really well, we are hoping he will be even better than at Pukekohe,” says O’Sullivan.
Dragon Leap finished fourth behind Waitak in the Railway at Pukekohe after a slightly interrupted preparation.
He is the $3.50 favourite for Saturday, which of course also gives the O’Sullivan/Scott stable their chance at the unusual double of winning both Group 1 sprints in the same year.
If Dragon Leap can pull that off, the stable will then be eyeing our elite sprint treble as Waitak will be aimed at the BCD Sprint at Te Rapa on February 10.
But if he makes it there, he could need a new jockey because Kennedy would seem certain to ride Crocetti in the BCD Sprint, giving him a realistic shot at winning all three of our greatest sprints but again on different horses.
Crocetti hasn’t raced since Kennedy rode him to win the 2000 Guineas at Riccarton in November, but will resume in the Almanzor Trophy at Ellerslie on Karaka Millions night at Ellerslie on January 27.
Being a home-bred horse who didn’t go through the yearling sales, Crocetti is ineligible for the $1.5 million TAB Karaka Millions 3-year-old the same night.
The favourite for that race is the O’Sullivan/Scott-trained Molly Bloom, who has won the 1000 Guineas and Eight Carat Classic in her last two starts.
Molly Bloom is thrilling her trainers with her progress since her Boxing Day win and will head to Ellerslie on Friday week (January 19) for a familiarisation gallop because she, like all age-group race contenders in coming weeks, has never raced at Ellerslie before.
Some of those galloped at Ellerslie on Monday, but the January 19 session, eight days out from the Karaka Millions, could be even busier because several leading stables have indicated they will take their bigger names there.
Auckland Thoroughbred Racing announced yesterday its new StrathAyr track will be declared as a Good 4 for upcoming meetings rather than rated on the penetrometer reading.
Penetrometer readings on the new surface have been inaccurate because they suggest it is firmer than what the feedback from jockeys is saying.
The StrathAyr track, which debuts this Sunday, dries quickly but provides good cushion and has earned rave reviews from jockeys, but the penetrometer doesn’t appear to accurately reflect how the track feels. The track had a rating of a Good 4 for Sunday and almost certainly the TAB Karaka Millions, while officials work on a way to most accurately assess it.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995, and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.