Inundation’s development will take another step this Saturday at Sandown when the promising sprinter contests the $130,000 Peter Couzens Handicap.
The son of Headwater underlined his standing as a horse of immense potential with a first-up track-record win at The Valley, which took his record to four wins from six starts, but co-trainer Michael Kent Jnr said there was no rush to jump him sharply in grade.
Inundation will meet six rivals in Saturday’s benchmark 84 event, in which Jamie Kah will take the ride.
“He’s a gelding and the name of the game is to earn a bank with these horses,” Kent, who trains in partnership with Mick Price, said.
“He’s a horse who took time to get to his first start. He’s a big, raw horse who was certainly one we wanted to nurse through his grades to begin with.
“If he keeps jumping the bar as we raise it we might get a bit more fair dinkum with him later on, but everything’s gone relatively to plan so far and it was certainly was pleasing to see him come back in that way first-up.”
Inundation readjusted The Valley’s 1000m track record when he went 56.84 seconds to defeat Unflinching by 2-3/4 lengths on Christmas Eve.
It was a meritorious performance for a lightly-raced four-year-old, but Kent said he bounced back relatively quickly from it.
“He certainly knew he’d been around for a day of two (after), but he’s bounced back very quickly, like good horses do, and we haven’t had to do much with him because it’s only a short gap between runs,” Kent said.
“Ideally, we would have liked there to be a similar race three weeks between runs, but when you’ve got a horse of his rating you’ve got to work within the program sometimes, so we’ve just kept him very fresh and done very little with him at home.
“This certainly looks like a nice little race for him.”
Inundation will jump from barrier two and Kent thinks he will be better suited to Sandown than The Valley.
“The Sandown 1000 metres is a lovely track, a nice dogleg and totally different to Moonee Valley,” he said.
“He’ll appreciate the bigger track, he’s a big, long-striding horse and barrier two is nice.
“It means Jamie doesn’t have to do too much thinking; just jump out and sit pretty. You’d expect there’d be good speed, so she can just judge the pace of the race and ride him as she finds him.”