With a racing business built primarily on Darley homebreds, Godolphin’s participation at the Magic Millions carnival has been almost exclusively restricted to wild card qualifiers.
Outside of notable exception Exhilarates, the winner of the 2019 Magic Millions Classic, trainer James Cummings hasn’t been flush with options for the Gold Coast features.
However, following the win of $160,000 yearling purchase Fleetwood in Saturday’s Kia Ora Prague Handicap (1100m) at Randwick, the Godolphin conditioner is hoping he has unearthed a bona fide contender.
“We have mainly just had a handful of runners here and there that have qualified through the wild cards, but this is a genuine Magic Millions purchase,” Cummings said.
“I’ve long considered him a Magic Millions prospect, but he needed to get his rating up.
“I’ve got time now to give him a good break and I can target the Magic Millions carnival with him.”
Gelded after he finished down the track in the Gosford Guineas in December, Fleetwood has been a model of consistency this preparation.
After opening his campaign with back-to-back wins at Warwick Farm and Randwick, he had two runs in Melbourne including a black type placing in the Creswick Stakes.
Returning to Randwick on Saturday, Fleetwood ($1.85 fav) travelled sweetly in the run for James Mcdonald to determinedly fend off the challenge of Sneaky Paige ($31) by a long neck with Bubba’s Bay ($10) another half-length away third.
“It’s a good effort from the horse to build on a good prep here, go down to Victoria, he ran twice in eight days (in Melbourne) and not everything went ideal for him there,” Cummings said.
“He is by our stallion that we keep a share in, Encryption, and he’s just been going so well since we gelded him.
“He’s had such a good prep, he has gone to a new level.”
Fleetwood’s success brought up a treble for McDonald, who earlier combined with Cummings to score on smart two-year-old Tarpaulin before collecting the Midway Handicap aboard the Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou-trained Green Shadows.
McDonald’s three-winner haul took his tally to 89 city winners this season and on Wednesday he will officially claim his sixth successive Sydney jockeys’ premiership and eighth overall.
Nash Rawiller was an outside chance to give McDonald a run for his money but was a late withdrawal from Saturday’s program due to illness and with only one city meeting remaining, has run out of time to bridge the gap.
