Son of I Am Invincible impressive in Caulfield debut.
Blake Shinn and the father/son training team Peter and Paul Snowden have combined for Golden Slipper success and Saturday’s Debutant Stakes suggested they have more feature juvenile races to get excited about.
King’s Gambit was a brilliant winner of the $175,000 Listed event over 1000 metres.
The son of I Am Invincible was a comprehensive five-length winner in a time of 57.93, which was a tick over a second outside the class record despite the race being conducted on a Soft 6 track.
“He’s pretty exciting horse and he won with authority today,” Sin said.
“He was bombproof and that’s how you like to see the two-year-olds win.”
King’s Gambit, who is out of the Encosta de Lago mare Sultry Feeling, carries the colours of his breeder Gooree Park Stud.
The $2.90 favourite defeated the Lloyd Kennewell-trained Pure Paradise, who was the $16 outsider of the field, with $4.60 chance Heuristic a long neck back third.
Peter Snowden did not want to get too far ahead of himself and talk about the 2023 Golden Slipper, which he and Shinn won with Capitalist in 2016, but will give serious consideration to the $1 million Golden Gift at Rosehill on November 5 if he stands up to training in the next few weeks.
“It was impressive today and it was his first start – they were all first starters – but if he did pull up really well there’ll be a discussion with the ownership group, no doubt,” Snowden said.
“The Golden Gift is a million-dollar race in about three or four weeks’ time so that is an option.
“But if the horse has had enough in a couple of weeks’ time, that’ll be enough for us to tip him out. It’ll depend how he’s come through the run.”