Australian owners and trainers have been raiding the stocks of European stayers for years.

While there has been mixed success with those horses on Australian shores, the European sprinters have largely gone untouched.

There has been the odd one or two filter through with Lindsay Park about to unveil their latest one at Flemington on Saturday in the 3AW Sprint (1100m).

Mark Pilkington and Darren Thomas from Seymour Bloodstock have entrusted Ben and J D Hayes with Boonie, a two-time winner from nine starts in Europe who contested races at the past two Royal Ascot meetings.

Boonie finished third in the Listed Windsor Castle (1000m) as a two-year-old in 2021 while last year he contested the major three-year-old sprint at Royal Ascot finishing down the track in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup (1200m).

Ben Hayes said Boonie, a son of Brazen Beau, had raced almost exclusively on straight tracks in England and is looking forward to seeing his Australian debut at Flemington.

As part of his preparation for Saturday’s race, Boonie won a Tatura 1000m trial on May 9.

“He looks like a nice sprinter. He’s well put together, and he looked to trial well,” Hayes said.

“It will be interesting to see how he goes. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more about him with this run.

“He’s got a relatively low rating, so we’ve decided to kick him off in a benchmark 90 down near the minimum weight.

“He’s only run on straight tracks in England, he’s very experienced on them, so it will be interesting to see if a UK sprinter can convert to being a good Aussie sprinter, which I think he can as he’s shown good speed.

“He’s got a real sprinters build, he’s quite a strong horse and he does look fast.

“Hopefully he is.”