Winter plans for another rising star

[Wandering Eyes]

Mick Price and training Mick Kent Junior have another potential Group One horse waiting patiently at home.

Ayrton (NZ) (Iffraaj), who in two runs over the summer lived up to his namesake in showing a need for speed, is back in work and likely headed to Brisbane for, potentially, a Stradbroke Handicap.

“If he gets his rating up and he’s right time, right place, he’ll certainly be entered for those sort of races,” Price told the Moody On The Mic podcast.

Ayrton, who like stablemate Profiteer is owned by Roll The Dice Racing, won his debut by five lengths over 1300m at Bendigo before backing it up with a 4.25 length win in a BM70 over 1400m at Caulfield on Boxing Day.

He headed to the paddock straight after with a rating of 71.

“He hasn’t got a rating to take him anywhere so, I think you’ll find that he races in Melbourne and then we take him to Queensland and run in some races up there, give him a winter working holiday and give him a little breather and then we’ve got time to bring him down for the spring,” Price said.

“It’s too long to just spell him all that time.

“He’s a perfectly sound horse, he’s a Kiwi and he’s going to put on weigh and furnish out a bit.”

While Price has earmarked the Stradbroke Handicap, a 1400m race at Eagle Farm as a potential winter target, he concedes he is still working out the ideal trip for the three-year-old gelding.

“He doesn’t seem like I want to make a 1200m horse out of him so I think 1400m to a mile would be perfect and he might even get further than that, in which case we’ll find out.”

Getting further than a mile would open up many additional doors, like a rumoured run at a Cox Plate but Price was in no rush to put something like that into ink.

“Who knows? We’ve got to get through winter and get his rating up and get a feel for him but yeah, all that’s an option isn’t it.”

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