Talented three-year-old Angry Skies will be given a shot at a large end of spring pot of gold when he runs at Caulfield on Saturday.
The Group 2 Sandown Guineas (1600m) has come on the radar of Lindsay Park trainers Ben & Jd Hayes after Angry Skies indicated he was not yet ready for a break.
Angry Skies, a veteran of only four race starts which includes a debut win in a Swan Hill maiden in September, has not raced since finishing 10th in a Listed 1400m race for three-year-olds at Flemington on the final day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
That run had followed a second-place finish in the Listed Gothic Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield when he chased Godolphin galloper Sandpaper, to go down narrowly.
J D Hayes said there was excuses for Angry Skies’ latest effort, and they are content to let the three-year-old have a shot at a major slice of the $300,000 prize money up for grabs on Saturday.
“He’s been lightly raced throughout the spring,” Hayes said.
“His last start you can put a line through it. We found a skin irritation under the saddle that really annoyed him, but we’ve got on top of that and he’s freshened up well.
“We couldn’t put him out in the paddock because he would have been doing 10 to the furlong around the fence, so he was telling us he wants to be in work, and he’s trained on beautifully.
“I can’t fault him, and I think you’ll see the Angry Skies form that was good at Caulfield and when he finished fourth at Sandown before it.”
While Angry Skies’ two best efforts have been on affected ground, Hayes does not think the colt is purely a wet tracker.
Rain is forecast at Caulfield until the middle of the week before fining up on Thursday and Friday with showers again forecast for Saturday, Hayes said Angry Skies had shown the stable he was equally at home on top of the ground.
“He’s a lightly raced, good looking, well put together colt and the Sandown Guineas has come around at just the right time,” Hayes said.