By Chris Roots
Godolphin has the luxury of picking and choosing where Veranillo will go to get to the Golden Slipper after he continued on his winning way in the Hinchinbrook Plate at Randwick on Saturday.
However, while the Medaglia D'oro colt is a professional, he might not be at the top of the class for the boys in blue.
Jockey James Doyle rides Veranillo to win The Hinchinbrook Plate at Royal Randwick racecourse. Credit: bradleyphotos.com.au
"He is going to be quite a nice horse but whether he is up to top class I'm not quite sure. But he is definitely going in the right direction," jockey James Doyle said after riding Veranillo to victory.
Veranillo was $26 into $15 for the the Slipper after scoring by 1-1/2 lengths from Exceeds with leader Eden Roc holding on for third, a half-neck back.
Trainer John O'Shea is likely to try blinkers on Veranillo.
"He is learning his trade while he is winning, which is really nice," O'Shea said.
"That will nearly get him in [the Slipper] now in terms of prizemoney, so we can just smoke our pipe and give him a run somewhere.
"At some stage we will put the blinkers on in the lead-up to the Slipper and see if that can't find us a bit more.
"If he can't run a place at his next run he doesn't deserve to be in the Golden Slipper anyway."
Veranillo has a determined nature and when Doyle got to work on him in the final 200m he really found the line.
"He gets behind the bridle and is quite lazy, but the more you get stuck into him the more he responds and he was exactly the same today," Doyle said.
"The leader went off quite quick so we were a couple of lengths back but I was just keen on keeping him up to his work. I didn't want to get too relaxed on him and they surrounded him and did him for a turn of foot but he dug deep and picked up. It was a very professional performance."
Exceeds found the line hard but never threatened the winner.
"The best part of her race was the last 50m, she is going to drop back to fillies company next time and be very hard to beat," jockey Brenton Avdulla said. "I have won on that colt and he is a nice horse."
Eden Roc continues to frustrate Tommy Berry, who had to fight with him most of the way as he wanted to run through the bridle.
"He is just so young in the head and doesn't do much right," Berry said. "He has all the ability and will be a good horse sometimes, but not now."
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