Broadsiding and Traffic Warden take the top two spots in the G1 Golden Rose

Outstanding colts Broadsiding and Traffic Warden showed they were the cream of the three-year-old crop in Sydney when they fought out the finish of the G1 Golden Rose at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday, 28 September.

Only a head separated the James Cummings-trained pair as they hit the line in the 1,400m feature race, with Broadsiding notching the third G1 victory of his eight-start career to stamp his credentials for a possible fourth in the G1 Caulfield Guineas on Saturday, 12 October.

Winner of the G1 Champagne Stakes and G1 J.J. Atkins Stakes as a two-year-old, Broadsiding returned to racing in fantastic fashion and could follow retired stable star Anamoe’s 2021 path into the Caulfield Guineas and on to the G1 Cox Plate in Melbourne next month.

Traffic Warden, a G1 runner-up for the second time after running second in the G1 Sires’ Produce Stakes at Randwick in April, could now be freshened and target The Everest over 1,200m at Royal Randwick in three weeks.

Cummings, who recorded his third Golden Rose victory, after Hallowed Crown (in partnership with his grandfather, Bart) in 2014 and Bivouac in 2019 for Godolphin, recorded his 50th G1 winner as a trainer.

He praised both colts and his entire training team after the thrilling race.

“It takes a village to run a racing stable and it doesn’t matter if it’s Leilani Lodge from 10 years ago or Godolphin now,” he said.

“I’ve got three great stables that are able to get their fingerprints all over horses like these. I owe it to them.

“They are the backbone, they are the guts of what we are trying to achieve and two big colts today in a proper race, letting down to fight it out in a race like the Golden Rose is a huge moment.”

The reigning champion NSW two-year-old and likely to be voted Australian juvenile champion next month, Broadsiding took his record to five wins and two placings from eight starts for prize-money earnings of just under $3 million.

After his superb return, the colt could now emulate the great Anamoe – who won nine G1s for Cummings – in the Caulfield Guineas.

“I had no trouble getting Anamoe ready for a Winx Stakes over seven furlongs first-up,” Cummings said.

“Plenty of good horses can do that. 

“The thing is, he’s by Too Darn Hot, he’s a European-bred horse with a European style, and chasing over six furlongs would not have been his go. 

“He was in the right race fresh up and that’s just our stable having the confidence to know our horses.

“As for the other horse, evidently he took great benefit from the first-up (Run To The Rose) run. 

“He’s gone enormous this afternoon and he continues to prove that he’s in for a blistering preparation, Traffic Warden.

Winning jockey James McDonald rode a superbly judged race and continues to be impressed by Broadsiding. 

“He’s got way more (ability) than we can ever imagined,” the champion rider said.

“He’s just a cool dude, the moment I sat on him in the Fernhill, to see his development from race to race to race is just incredible.

“And he’s dead-set, he hasn’t gone up step by step, he’s skipped a couple.

“James had so much belief in him, all the staff have been rapping him at home and to come here first-up, history was against him… but he’s just a star, the horse.

“Anamoe goes, this one comes in.”