Sutton hopes for dual Guineas threat

[Wandering Eyes]

Dominic Sutton has Feroce (NZ) (Super Seth) set for an Australian Guineas tilt and the up-and-coming trainer is hopeful Detroit City can join the Caulfield Guineas runner-up in the Group One feature at Flemington on Saturday.

Feroce will be aiming to go one better in Saturday’s Australian Guineas than his narrow defeat in the Caulfield Guineas last spring, while stablemate Detroit City is 19th in the ballot order with a field limit of 16 plus four emergencies.

Acceptances for the Australian Guineas are taken on Wednesday.

“We’ll accept with both,” Sutton said on Tuesday.

“Detroit City will be touch and go whether he makes the field, he’s probably likely going to be an emergency, but the plan is to try to run both of them.”

Feroce went close to giving Sutton his first Group Ome when he charged late only to be narrowly beaten by Private Life in the Caulfield Guineas last October.

The three-year-old made his return this campaign in the Gr.3 C.S. Hayes Stakes (1400m) at Flemington on February 15, finishing third behind Sepals and Ndola in a run which pleased Sutton.

“He didn’t handle the Soft track that day and got beaten by two horses with race fitness on the day,” Sutton said.

“I think it was a really good prep run ahead of stepping up to the mile. I think seven furlongs is as short as he wants it now, so he’s really starting to show that he wants a mile-plus.”

Sutton believes Feroce has come back as well as he was in the spring and also believes he will stretch out further in distance this campaign.

“I think he’s probably looking for a little bit further now in distance,” he said.

“He’s starting to shape and look more like a 2000-metre horse, but in saying that he wasn’t far away over seven furlongs and he has shown he is good at the mile.

“He’s as good as he was heading into the Caulfield Guineas in the spring.”

Detroit City finished fourth in the Autumn Stakes at Caulfield first-up this campaign, which was won by Australian Guineas favourite Angel Capital, and Sutton is also not discounting his hopes if he sneaks into the field.

“We wanted to ride him a little bit quieter than that, being first-up,” Sutton said of Detroit City’s Autumn Stakes run.

“He had a really long break, he was first-up and rode the speed and got a bit tired late.

“He’ll really appreciate stepping up to a mile, he’ll enjoy Flemington, the blinkers go back on and if he gets a run, I think he definitely shouldn’t be forgotten about.

“Feroce is obviously the classier horse, probably, on paper.

“They are quite similar in type, they’re both horses I think will get over 10 furlongs (2000m) this time around.

“It looks like we’re going to get a dry track, which is good.

“You’d have Feroce ahead of Detroit City, but Detroit is a real tough horse and his work on Monday was excellent, so I think if he gets a run, he’ll give the race a shake as well.”

Sutton saddled up his first runner as a trainer just under a year ago and Saturday shapes as another important day in his young training career to date.

“Even just to have horses good enough to run in these races is a pretty hard thing to do, so to have potentially two is pretty exciting,” Sutton said.

“They are only three once and when they do turn four it gets a lot harder. They both will be live chances in the race if Detroit (City) gets a run as well.

“It’s big for us being so early on in our career but it’s what we’re striving to do, to race these good horses in these good races.”

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