Broadsiding provides the Champagne for Cummings and McDonald

Classy colt Broadsiding stamped himself as future star when the powerful two-year-old scored an impressive win from well back in the G1 Champagne Stakes at Royal Randwick on Saturday, 20 April.

Premier jockey James McDonald positioned Broadsiding in seventh spot until nearing the home turn before searching for a run over the famous Randwick rise.

Broadsiding, by the boom young Darley stallion Too Darn Hot, grabbed the bit and raced past Linebacker in the heavy conditions to win by three-quarters of a length. Fearless was another 4.5 lengths away in third spot.

Godolphin Australia head trainer James Cummings decided to back-up Broadsiding after the youngster pulled up so well following his easy victory in the Listed Fernhill Mile at Randwick a week earlier.

“He’s been a real work in progress, he’s the type of horse who has improved with a lot of experience,” Cummings said.

“He’s just got this very interesting future about him, being by Too Darn Hot – who is an emerging sire for us.

“He (Too Darn Hot) was a colt raced by Andrew Lloyd Webber for John Gosden and he was an exceptional two-year-old himself.”

The Champagne Stakes win was special for Cummings, who won his first Group 1 in the same race eight years earlier with Prized Icon.

But the trainer said he was more delighted for his team and Darley.

“This is a big deal for the farm, to get the first two-year-old colt to win a Group 1 this season is amazing,” he said.

“I just begged James to ride the horse that way and it eally paid off. 

“He loved that quick back-up, he’s excelled once he’s got to a mile and that’s the class of the European pedigree coming through, and that told in the finish.”

For McDonald, the victory was his 95th at Group 1 level and testament to his faith in Broadsiding after the colt’s Fernhill success.

“Gee, he’s a trier,” McDonald said.

“He had it written all over him last start so I came here with good confidence.

“I thought he would handle the conditions well.

“Sometimes I do what I’m told and sometimes I don’t.

“It was just get back and brush home and if you handle it, you handle it.”

Broadsiding, who took his record to two wins and two placings from just five starts for prize-money earnings of $739,675, looks an ideal G1 Caulfield Guineas candidate in the spring.