Promising three-year-old St Giles crowned the encouraging start he has made to his career with a dominant victory at Matamata.
The Gerry Harvey-bred and raced son of Westbury Stud resident Swiss Ace had finished in the money in his previous three outings for trainer Cody Cole so was a deserved winner over 1400 metres on Saturday.
“He’s taken a while to figure things out, he’s been a bit immature but he’s putting it all together now,” Cole said.
St Giles was third on debut at Otaki in the spring and was then put aside after he ran fourth at Te Aroha.
The gelding found the line strongly when resuming at Te Rapa over 1200 metres at the end of January and had no trouble going one better under Craig Grylls at the weekend.
St Giles was quickly into stride to make the running, and he stayed on strongly in the run home to score by 1.3l.
“Cody said before the race it would be nice to get a couple of places back, but he jumped too well and then kicked nicely. He should go on with it,” Grylls said.
St Giles is a son of the Postponed mare Simplicity, a half-sister to multiple winner and G1 Easter Handicap runner-up Trojan Warrior.
“He’s got plenty of ability and so has his full-brother Old Bill Bone, but this one probably has more,” Cole said.
Simplicity produced a pair of colts by El Roca after St Giles and is again in foal to the stakes winning son of Fastnet Rock.
The dam’s pedigree page also features the Australian Group winners and Group 1 placegetters Ponton Flyer and Bank Robber.
St Giles’ success continued the good run of form of Westbury graduates in Harvey’s colours with Coulthard posting his breakthrough victory the previous day at Waverley.
Trained by Lisa Latta, the Redwood three-year-old was making his third appearance and romped home over 1650 metres in the hands of Jonathan Riddell.
Coulthard is a son of the More Than Ready mare Best Of British, whose dam is a half-sister to the G2 QTC Cup winner and two-time Group 1-placed sprinter Into The Night.
Best Of British has a yearling filly by El Roca and is back in foal to Redwood.