Tulloch Lodge babies again to the fore

Sydney’s first official two-year-old trials of the season rarely pass without Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott making a statement and the country’s premier juvenile stable again did so on Monday.

Tulloch Lodge won three of the eight 850-metre trials, including one with a colt who put up the equal fastest time of the session and another with a son of Farnan.

North England turned in one of the performances of the day when a brilliant winner of the third trial for colts and geldings.

The $280,000 Inglis Classic yearling ran 49.43 seconds, but did it in dominant style from the front and was given an easy time of things late.

North England is a member of Farnan’s first crop and Bott said he looked similarly precocious to the 2020 Golden Slipper winner, who was also trained by Waterhouse and Bott.

“He shows a lot of those similar attributes as dad,” Bott said.

“That always make it that little bit sweeter as well, knowing him and his qualities and he’s certainly passed it on to him.

“He’s really gone the right way over the last few weeks. He’s always been quite an unassuming horse but the further and deeper we’ve got into the campaign the more he’s really started to sharpen up.”

North England was ridden by Tim Clark, while James Mcdonald had the ride on Zoustar colt Tuscany, who came from off-speed to win by half-a-length in a time of 49.11secs.

“He’ll have learnt plenty off that experience there,” Bott said of the $1.55m Inglis Easter Yearling Sale purchase, who is a brother to Schwarz.

“James just took him back and got him into a nice rhythm. We wanted to see him tested late, which James did and he responded really well, so I think there’s a lot of upside to come off the back of today.”

Waterhouse and Bott’s other winner was Ole Kirk youngster King Kirk, who won the second colts and geldings’ trial under Rachel King by half-a-length in 49.57secs.

Peter Snowden was the only other trainer to win one of the boys trials, producing Cosmic Force colt Raging Force to power home along the inside and win by half-a-length in 49.44secs.

“Everything he’s done he’s done effortlessly and he keeps getting better, which is a good sign,” Snowden said.

Many of the colts seen on Monday morning will head to the $250,000 Group 3 Breeders Plate (1000m) on Saturday week at Randwick, the same day as the $250,000 Group 3 Gimcrack Stakes (1000m) for fillies.

Snowden could be represented there by Capitalist filly Memo, who won the first fillies’ trial in 49.33secs.

Bjorn Baker won two of the other fillies trials, with Strada Varenna (Street Boss) and O’ Ole (Ole Kirk) in 50.02secs and 49.11 secs respectively, while Blue Point filly Icarian Dream won for Ciaron Maher in 49.43secs.