He’s gone from a lowly Newcastle maiden win to a Saturday Sydney metropolitan winner in the space of four weeks and the John O’Shea-trained Sydney Bowler ($6) could be headed up north for even greater riches.
After doing some work to get across from his wide barrier, hoop Jason Collett managed to get his mount travelling in a handy position outside the leader, and race favourite, Keenan ($3.40F) before pulling away from them for a dominant two and quarter length romp.
The Jason Coyle-prepared King Of Dubai ($14) hit the line dourly for second with Dazzle Legend ($10) a long head back in third position. Favourite Keenan battled on for fourth but didn’t find much when asked.
Stable representative, and son of the trainer, Jordan O’Shea was not surprised by the Deep Field progeny’s impressive victory and believes there may be bigger fish to fry up on the Gold Coast in two week’s time.
The three-year-old gelding was a $300,000 purchase for Suman Hedge Bloodstock at the yearling sales earlier last year.
“Very good win from him, we expected it from him,” O’Shea said.
“He’s been tough all week, very fit, wouldn’t blow out a candle after his gallop the other day.
“Off to the Gold Coast hopefully, should go to the MM Guineas.
“We’ll see how he pulls up tomorrow and Monday and work our way from there.”
Rider Collett was impressed with rapid trajectory of his mount and was complimentary of how much progress the O’Shea barn had made with the lightly-raced conveyance.
“That’s a good effort, to win at provincial and then come out on a Saturday and do that,” Collett said.
“He got pretty warm beforehand but the stable did a bit of work with him with the barriers.
“He had the blindfold on and they tried a few things in between last start.
“It was effective because I jumped so well and just got across easy.”
Sydney Bowler now sits on the fourth line of betting at $11 with popular betting sites for the 3YO Magic Millions Guineas on the Gold Coast on January 13.