Cape Breton has put in an impressive debut performance to win the Blue Point @ Darley Handicap (1250m) at Canterbury on Wednesday.
The two-year-old was the second part of a Chris Waller treble, with the leading trainer winning the first three races on the card.
It also capped off a race-to-race double for James Mcdonald, extending his lead in the Sydney metropolitan jockey’s premiership.
Cape Breton had trialled on five occasions leading into his debut on Wednesday, but that didn’t phase assistant trainer Charlie Duckworth, who was confident the colt would get the job done.
“He’s obviously taken a bit of time to get to today and he’s been very much a work in progress,” he said.
“I think his first official trial he got beaten in excess of 10 lengths, so he’s slowly pieced it all together.
“He came here today, and we were pretty confident that we had the right horse and he won in good style.
“We’re very much of the opinion that anything we got today was going to be just a bonus moving forward.
“He’s going to be a beautiful three-year-old colt who you’d expect to be a guineas type horse.”
Cape Breton jumped well from the gates and was able to position himself on the back of the leading pair.
McDonald peeled three-wide as they rounded the home turn, with the colt letting down beautifully and holding off his rivals to score by 0.33 lengths.
McDonald said the son of Vancouver will develop into a good horse with time.
“He’s definitely going to get a lot better with a bit of time under his belt,” he said.
“What he’s doing now is an absolute bonus, because he’s got lots of scope to improve physically.
“But he’s been very well prepared, handled all the way through, had a really good education and come here and put it together really well.
“There’s plenty to like about him, he’ll develop into a nice horse.”
McDonald would notch up a treble later in the day, winning on the Peter and Paul Snowden trained Vigorous Flow in race six on the card.
Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au