Image: Steve Hart
Learning To Fly brings his Barrier Trial form to race day with a stunning debut win at Rosehill
Annabel Neesham has labeled Learning to Fly a “special” filly after living up to her Barrier Trial hype with a classy win in the Listed Wide Stakes at Rosehill.
In doing so, the two-year-old became the first Australian winner for her sire Justify and his first stakes winner.
Learning To Fly had impressed in two trials, most recently by beating the placegator Perfect Proposal in the Gimcrack Stakes, but Nesham was relieved to see him do so on race day.
“Excited and relieved at the same time. She was fantastic,” said Neesham.
“She floated in front and I thought the other horse (Steel City) was going to take her but she dug in deep.
“We’ve always had a very good opinion of him, but unless you see him come and do it in the afternoon, you never know how good he is.
“We think she’s pretty special and to do it in Coolmore colors is very exciting, and (for) the Kia Ora as well.”
Learning To Fly ($4.20) needed good early pace to finish second in the race, paying leader Perfect Proposal early in the straight and showing determination to rise again when challenged by eventual runner-up Steel City ($3.70 favourite) Happened, held him. Bay by half the length.
Mumbai Saraswati ($18) came back from a wide draw and took the line well in third place, 2-1/4 lengths away.
Hoop winning Chad Scofield didn’t expect Learning to Fly to settle so close to the pace in the 1100m event and says he’s a class above his rivals.
Scofield said, “He put himself out there for me like good horses do.”
“She easily surfaced and then waited for them. The more she felt they came to her, the more she gave to me.
Neasham was unsure of immediate plans for Learning to Fly, named after the Tom Petty song of the same name, but said the $2 million Inglis Millennium (1100) at Randwick in two weeks was an option.
“I’ll have to talk to the team. He’s an English horse so we could probably go into the English Millennium in a fortnight,” he said.
“Obviously the golden slipper is the real objective, hopefully that’s what the grand final will be.”
Perfect Proposal disappoints after leading and defeating just one rival home, with jockey Tim Clark saying he took his run into the increasing yardage.
“She had put in a lot of pre-race work,” Clark said.
Learning To Fly now shares the second row of the Golden Slipper betting at $8 with Red Resistance, who had already taken out the Canonbury Stakes on the program with runner-up King’s Gambit in that race, taking his slipper to the top of the markets at $6. Position maintained. ,
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