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The patient policy adopted with promising three-year-old colt Dragon Dancer is about to be ramped up several notches after a comprehensive win at Ellerslie on the weekend.
The strapping son of O’Reilly emerged with flying colours after taking on the older horses in rating 65 company over 1400 metres on Saturday as his final lead-up to a crack at the elite level in the Gr. 1 2000 Guineas at Riccarton in a fortnight. The victory clinched a start in the Riccarton feature while also providing the Bruce Wallace trained entire with more valuable racing experience before his big mission.
“We’ve tried to be patient with him all the way along as we think he is a horse with a big future,” explained Wallace.“Everything we have done with him has followed the plan we put in place after we sent him to the paddock following a couple of starts as a two-year-old.
”He really matured physically during his break and has come back a far bigger and stronger individual for this campaign however the mental side of things needed some work which they can only get with more race experience.”Wallace was quick to pay credit to stable foreman Alan Peard for the work he has done with Dragon Dancer to get him ready for his spring campaign.
“Alan has done a lot of work with him and has done a superb job,” he said.“He felt the horse was a real Guineas type so we have timed his preparation to have him ready for Christchurch if we could. The key was trying to get him the race experience he will need to compete with the big guns and hopefully he will take plenty out of this latest win as he had work to do and stuck to his task nicely.”
While Wallace is backing Peard’s judgment in taking the colt to Riccarton the pair also have further Group One aspirations in mind for him later in the season.“We both think he could be a Derby horse on the evidence to date,” he said.
“He relaxes nicely in his races and has a good turn of foot when he needs it. I don’t think he will have any problems getting to 2000 metres so if he keeps progressing the Derby at 2400 metres should be within his scope.“That is still a fair way off though so we will see how he goes at Riccarton and how he comes through the trip before we put any real thought into where we go with him after that.”