It’s that high-stakes time of year where the heavy spenders and the big-horse players make their mark and in that tradition, Snitzel colt Diplomatico makes something of a dramatic Melbourne debut in Saturday’s Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes.
The colt was purchased for $1.7 million at the Sydney Easter yearling sales in 2017 by George Moore Bloodstock, who engaged a few Hong Kong clients to race him with the long-range plan of getting him to a stallion-making race as a three-year-old.
The Coolmore Stud Stakes ranks as possibly the premier stallion-maker so while Diplomatico will be giving away a deal of experience to his rivals, he will feel right at home in the race for top-shelf sprinters.
“They paid $1.7 million for this horse and this is what owners dream of – paying the big money for big colts and running in these big races with a chance to be worth telephone numbers,” co-trainer Wayne Hawkes said on Friday morning.
“He’s the fresh horse on the scene albeit he’s the greenest horse. He doesn’t have the experience of Written By or Zousain. Even though they are young horses, they are pretty hard and seasoned, that’s what we lack.
“We are a high draft pick, but you can’t buy experience.
“I’d love him to have a bit more experience. He’s in the big, big, deep, deep end and it’s the big dance but they don’t run the race next week.
“So win, lose or draw, he’ll be in the paddock early next week back in Sydney.”
Diplomatico has run just three times and recorded two wins that were considered impressive enough for him to rise to the elite company he faces on Saturday.
But while inexperienced race-wise, Hawkes said Diplomatico will be in the same boat as his sternest rivals in that they are all making racing debuts down the straight course.
“It’s a different ball game this race because all of the fancied horses haven’t really raced up the straight before and that’s quite unusual,” Hawkes added.
“Flemington up the straight is really horses-for-courses.
“Ability-wise he’s certainly good enough but he’s just a raw, immature horse.
“When he won the Brian Crowley up in Sydney the other day the wet track, he really didn’t handle it at all.
“He’s got such a big, beautiful stride on him and he got through it and won well but he would have won better on a drier track so it will be good to get to Flemington where the track will be good.”
Hawkes said the stable had always hoped the colt could develop into a challenger for the $1 million sprint but said it has only been recently that Diplomatico has shown himself to be ready for the task.
“To be fair, he only won a maiden two starts ago. He’s always been a high-class horse at home as an unraced horse. Ability and capabilities were a long, long way apart but of all a sudden his ability and capabilities have all just come together at the right time,” he said.
Hawkes said the horse is benefiting from previous trips to Melbourne.
“He’s settled in really well but he’s been down here as an unraced horse on a couple of occasions,” he said.
“We do that with all of our young horses so when you get to this time of year with these sort of horses and they are back in their old box and back in their old routine.
“So the hard work you put into them as young horses when they are unraced, this is when it pays dividends.”
– racing.com
