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Zoustar colt leads home Waterhouse/Bott trifecta in boys’ 2YO feature.
Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott made a clean sweep of the Breeders' Plate (1000m) with Zoustar colt Espionage leading home a stable trifecta.
The $7.50 chance staged a tough battle with Straight Charge ($4.60) over the final 200m before nailing him on the line to score by a short half-head with Prost ($20) running on for third, another three-quarters of a length away.
Espionage was a $1 million yearling purchase for James Harron and the bloodstock agent was thrilled to get the result in a race whose winners include successful sires Pierro (2011), Vancouver (2014) and Capitalist (2015), which Harron also raced.
"You just have to look at the winners that have come out of this and gone on to be good stallions," Harron said.
"It's got an incredibly important place in the breeding landscape in Australia and it's a race we always target."
Bott said all three placegetters were quality colts with bright futures and he will see how they come through Saturday before deciding which path each will take.
"Some may be Magic Millions types, some may be pretty good for the autumn and some may even push on to the a Golden Gift," Bott said.
"There are different paths we can take and there's a bit of weighing up to do."