Baraqiel stretches unbeaten run to four

Troy Corstens issued himself some homework after remarkable gelding Baraqiel on Saturday added another picket to the fence he has constructed to start his career.

The late-starter made it four wins from as many starts when he won the $130,000 Lamaro’s Hotel Handicap (1200m).

Cortens is unsure if he has had a horse win four races on end since entering a training partnership with his father Leon, but is now keen to find out the answer.

“It’s very, very hard to win four races in a row and that’s not lost on me,” he said.

“I don’t even know if I’ve had a horse that’s won four races in a row, I’ll have to go back and have a look.

“We’ve always thought he was a serious horse, it’s just been a matter of developing him and keeping him sound and seeing where he can take us.”

The son of Snitzel, who started $4.20 equal betting app favourite with Ben Allen aboard, justified the stable’s faith when he overcame waywardness in the straight to get home by a half-neck from Legio Ten ($9) who finished three-quarters-of-a-length in front of him James Cummings-trained stablemate Jewellery ($4.80).

The Caulfield victory followed a four-length maiden win over 1105m at Sale, 1200m Class 1 success at Pakenham and benchmark 78 success over the same distance at Swan Hill during the carnival.

All wins have come in the final quarter of his five-year-old season and Corstens is proud Baraqiel is delivering the promise he assured the Bennett Racing ownership group he had.

“You don’t put that time in, or be that patient, with a horse that doesn’t have the ability,” Corstens said.

“He showed us the early ability right from the start, so it’s been easy to say, ‘right, we’ve got to wait, we’ve got to stop or we’ve got to do this…’

“It’s been really time consuming, but he’s really worth it.”

Baraqiel was first emergency for the benchmark 84 event, thanks to a pre-race rating of 74, and while that will jump after Saturday’s win, it presents the team with options that could include the $200,000 Group 3 Sir John Monash Stakes (1100m) back at Caulfield on July 13.

“It’s nice to have a horse that you can even think like that with, they’re very rare and every trainer out there will tell you they don’t come along that often,” Corstens said.

“To be able to sit down and talk about races like that – we’ll give them consideration – but we’ve got a little way to go in the ratings band so we might try and pop through a few of those as we go along.”