Juvenile Militarize has made an impressive start to his career at Canterbury and in doing so revived memories of another son of super sire Dundeel.
Champion hoop James Mcdonald couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the Chris Waller-trained youngster and Castelvecchio, who took out a similar race at the same track at his first start four years ago before going on to win two Group 1 races and finish runner-up in the 2019 Cox Plate.
“Geez that was a smart debut,” McDonald said.
“I can remember Castelvecchio doing a similar thing over this course and distance, and he is the spitting image of his old man (Dundeel).
“He’s got the right attributes. To be winning over six furlongs this early on is pretty good and he can only improve.”
McDonald only rode Castelvecchio in his final start but he had a special association with Dundeel, partnering that horse to all six of his Group 1 wins.
The majority of Dundeel’s progeny improve with time and distance and Waller’s stable representative Charlie Duckworth admitted they anticipated Militarize being in a similar mould.
Instead, the colt has surprised them with his precocity and will now be given every opportunity to progress to better races during the Sydney autumn carnival, including the 2023 Golden Slipper.
“He’s a Dundeel so we were expecting him to be a little bit later than what he has been,” Duckworth said.
“But every time we have raised the bar, he’s said, ‘let’s have a crack at that.’.
“He has taken fantastic improvement from his first trial to his second trial and then from his second trial to the races and in a very quick turnaround in time.
“He’s obviously going to go on from this to bigger and better things.
“Hopefully we can get towards a Slipper and races like that. Every two-year-old race at this time of year is very important.”
Militarize ($6.50) appreciated a genuine tempo, sweeping down the outside to deny Craig Williams aboard Queen Of Dragons ($3.20) at what was the visiting Victorian hoop’s only ride of the day.
Wymark ($13) was third with the winner’s stablemate Snowman also pleasing the stable with his effort to finish fifth.
“He did a few things wrong in the early stages and still knuckled down well late so two nice colts,” Duckworth said.
