Winning Horse: Royal Crown (Aus)

4yoG Helmet (Aus) - Princess Regina (NZ)(Zabeel (NZ))

17 starts - 5 wins 1 second 2 thirds 1 fourth $300650

Black Type Wins

1st LR Caulfield Neds Galilee Series Final 2400m (2020)

Other Wins

1st Werribee Tobin Brothers (Bm78) 2600m (2021)

1st Sandown-Hillside Ladbrokes Boost Exotics (Bm64) 1800m (2020)

1st Yarra Valley Yarra Valley Grand Hotel Mdn 1514m (2020)

Race Result:

1st: Royal Crown (Michael Kent/Damien Thornton) - $3.40

2nd: Reflect The Stars (Danny O’Brien/Craig Williams) - $4.20
3rd: Auf Weidersehen (Raymond N Mathews/Craig Newitt) - $18

Winning Time: 2:37.67 Last 600m: N/A

Margins: Long Neck x Half-Neck

Winning Trainer: Michael Kent

Seven-day backup of Royal Crown : “I actually think we started running him last Saturday knowing this race was on. We drew soft and the favourites were drawn out and I thought we would take our chance but there was no advantage drawing soft the way the track ended up being. We always had an eye on this race, he had a good week so it was obvious to take the chance.”

Future targets: “There’s still a winter program, there’s still an Open Handicap at Flemington in a fortnight. I said to the owners, we’ve backed him up twice this prep now, maybe it’s time to pull up stumps for a month and maybe have a go at a race like the Pakenham Cup at the backend. It might be a reasonably soft race we could target for him.”

Stable success: “I think a lot of these horses are soft ground horses and it took ages to get some soft ground this winter, we haven’t had a lot of rain. That track is probably better than a six in my opinion. They are mostly wet trackers that I’ve got in work at the moment and when the tracks are soft we’ve had a bit of luck.”

Winning Jockey: Damien Thornton

Muddling tempo: “I was quite content to follow Willo (Craig Williams) and not let the grey horse (Cakewalk Baby) get in and keep it out and inject that little bit of speed at some point as it looked quite keen and it was only a matter of time before (Michael) Poy let it go. It worked out really well for us as we were able to follow Willo and baby-sit Mahamedeis for as long as I could around the bend and not leave it too late to pick up Willo (on runner-up Reflect The Stars). It worked out well. It was a muddling run race, but he’s a pretty cruisy horse to ride and it wasn’t too much of a concern.

Surprised how well he came back from Flemington: “Mick’s a pretty good trainer and you can never under-estimate him. He knows what he’s doing and if he wasn’t happy with the horse, he probably wouldn’t have run today. He presented in really good order. He backed-up from when he won at Werribee and went to town and run really good and I was a bit concerned he didn’t run out the 2800 (metres) last time. Back to 2400, and lesser grade too, I alway thought he was going to be thereabouts.”

Nick Ryan on Mahamedeis (fourth as $3.30 fav): “It was tricky with barrier one, no speed. I think if he had had any luck and got him into the race he gives it a shake.”

Nick Ryan on Regardsmaree

“He jumped out really well yesterday and will run first-up in the Aurie’s Star and third-up in the Sir Rupert Clarke.

“He’s come back really well. It’s the first real prep he’s had with me from the start, so we’re really excited.

Had him nominated for Bletchingly: “We just thought we would wait and run him up the straight in the Aurie’s Star.

“He’s had two jump-outs. The first was a quiet one and a bit more serious yesterday. He’s going terrific.”