Trekking lands a second G1 in The Goodwood Handicap at Morphettville

Class and determination carried Trekking to the second G1 victory of his career over one of the best The Goodwood Handicap fields in decades at Morphettville on Saturday, 16 March.

In a performance that gave Godolphin its fourth, worldwide G1 win for the year and set the stage for another top-level success, Trekking barged into the clear at the 200m to set out after the favourite Gytrash who had sprinted clear.

With 50m to run he still had a length to make up, but he responded to jockey John Allen’s call, lunging at Gytrash in the final stride to win by a half-head.

Godolphin’s G1-winning filly Lyre ran on strongly to finish third.

“That puts an exclamation mark on our Adelaide campaign,” said trainer James Cummings.

“He’s a class horse and he needed to show it today."

“We’ve seen some good performances in the Godolphin colours today, the wind is in our sails.”

“Reg Fleming and the team in Melbourne have looked after him very-very well and they’ve presented him in fabulous order today,” he said.

The runner-up Gytrash was one of five G1 winners in the Goodwood, and Trekking,  son of the inimitable Street Cry, reigned supreme over them all, setting himself up for another tilt at next month’s G1 Stradbroke Handicap in Brisbane.

And the signs are positive that he can repeat success which followed his win exactly 12 months ago in the Listed Luskin Star Stakes at Scone, a race won on Saturday by the Godolphin runner Ranier who is also a possibly Stradbroke runner.

Ranier’s win, in the race run this year at Rosehill, was the third in succession for Godolphin, following those of Osborne Bulls in 2018 and Trekking last year.

 “It's three weeks out from the Stradbroke and the horse is going to be arriving down on the limit and he's going to be in winning form, so there's a lot to like about that," said Cummings.

After taking a closer-than-usual position, Ranier raced clear over the final 100m to Brave Song and Eleven Eleven.

Cummings said Ranier shaped as the stable’s “dark horse” for the season’s remaining feature races.

"It is right up there for a progressive handicapper on the way through and while Ranier has a long way to go before he proves himself to be in the same echelon as Osborne Bulls and Trekking, one thing he is, is a dark horse," Cummings said.