What a fantastic debut in Gr1 company by Bennett Racing Import Fawkner Park. The 5yo coming off 2 Listed Cup wins at Albury & Wagga Wagga stepped up to the mark and passed in flying colours when an unlucky 3rd beaten a head a head on Saturday in the Gr1 Doomben Cup. Although not a stellar edition of the race it did include 5 individual Gr1 winners with the rest of the field either Group or Listed winners.
Tyler Schiller has a great affinity with Fawkner Park and he knows the horses capabilities very well. He settled back, like usual, and put the horse to sleep on the fence 3rd last. He cleverly got him off the fence to the 800m and started to slice through the field whilst travelling comfortably under his own steam. On turning for home you could see he was full of running and Tyler would have loved to have got him to the outside for clear running but he couldn’t. He elected to go through the field and at the 200m mark when charging, Detonator Jack rolled in under pressure and brushed Fawkner Park just stopping his momentum momentarily. He gathered himself again and forged to the line ultimately failing by 1⁄2 neck. Fawkner Park covered 13m more than the winner and was beaten less than 1m. Wow…despite not quite achieving the ultimate – Fawkner Park emphatically answered 2 questions – Group 1 horse (Yes) – WFA horse (Yes). His future path is now a very different one to what it has been since he landed in Australia. Fawkner Park has arrived as a serious player in Australia’s biggest middle distance races.
Fantastic result for all involved – this horse arrived in Australia having won a Maiden in Ireland from 3 starts. He started off on May 13th 2023 in a BM64 over 1500m at Kembla Grange. When he stormed home from last under a big weight to win – we thought we had a really nice horse. Just over a year later, he has won 6 races (2 Stakes races) and placed twice (1 at Gr1) from 13 starts and earned about $575k. Better still – this looks just the beginning. All being well, he will go to the Q22 in 3 weeks a Gr2 WFA race over 2200m on the bigger, more spacious Eagle Farm track. If he gets a firm surface – you’d have to think he’d be a good chance again.
Fawkner Park was a 120k gns purchase from the 2022 Tattersalls Horses In Training Sale. He was sourced along with Leading International Agent Stuart Bowman.
Congratulations to all owners who are having a fabulous ride with this very exciting import and thankyou to Annabel Neasham and her Team for a great training effort once agin.
