It doesn’t boast black-type status, but the final race on the Golden Eagle program will be an important one for connections of up-and-coming gelding Bullets High.
The four-year-old returned with an emphatic first-up victory over 1400m at Warwick Farm, building on the promise he had shown last season when he did enough to earn a Queensland Derby start.
While he finished down the track in the Group 1, as a son of 2018 Victoria Derby winner Ace High, Bullets High’s pedigree suggests he will stay.
However, trainer Joe Pride is yet to be convinced and will use Saturday’s City Tattersalls Club Handicap (1500m) to test his theory.
“We’re not totally sure he is a stayer yet,” Pride said.
“He has won over 2100 metres, but where these horses fool you along the way is what they’re able to do on class alone.
“He keeps doing something that has got me scratching my head, and that’s sprinting really well fresh. He has done it three times in his life where he has sprinted more like he is a miler.
“I have left him at 1500 for this run and we’ll see. I know he is a handy horse, I’ve just got to see what the best possible version of him is.”
Bullets High is a $3.80 chance at Rosehill where he will have the services of Nash Rawiller.
While Bullets High will be jumping from midweek to Saturday grade, stablemate Stockman has been doing jumping of a different kind ahead of his assignment in the Rosehill Gold Cup (2000m).
Struggling for form this preparation, Stockman has been put over a few small logs in the hopes it will reinvigorate his form and Pride says he is a natural.
“He has loved it. He is popping over them,” Pride said.
“I’ve got a jumps jockey who rides him and he reckons he will make a really good jumper. He goes over logs and jumps twice as high as he needs to.
“I have done it with him a couple of times, just in the last two weeks. It is an old trick trainers use and it sometimes works too.”