Promising three-year-old Swiftfalcon has stamped himself as a genuine Spring Champion Stakes contender after posting the second impressive win of his current campaign, this time in the Dulcify Stakes.
Stepping out for just his fifth career start, Swiftfalcon backed up a convincing performance at Flemington first-up last month in a 1420m benchmark race with a dominant display in Saturday’s Listed 1600m event at Randwick against his own age.
Co-trainer Michael Hawkes pinpointed the Group 1 Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on October 26 as an ideal target for the gelding.
“That’s always been the plan,” Hawkes said.
“First-up we thought about running him here in a Golden Rose, but we decided to take the easy option and head back to Melbourne and then bring him back for this race.
“We thought this would be a little bit weaker race, to be fair, rather than taking on a Caulfield Guineas.
“The Spring Champion has always been there and he’s looking like he wants to stay 2000 metres, too, which is great.”
Swiftfalcon is on the second line of Spring Champion Stakes markets behind the Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained Henlein.
Swiftfalcon, the $4 favourite, settled back in the field before chiming in strongly on the outside under jockey Jay Ford approaching the 200m mark in Saturday’s race.
He went on to defeat Pleasure Artist ($26) by just over two lengths, with Media Award ($6) third.
