Lion’s Roar set for Summer Cup swansong

Lion’s Roar is set for another Summer Cup tilt at Randwick in what will be the Group 1 winner’s final race start before retirement.

A winner of six of his 40 career starts, Lion’s Roar has achieved Group 1 success in the 2021 Randwick Guineas and he also placed in the Spring Champion Stakes and Australian Derby at the elite level during his three-year-old season.

In more recent times, the gelding has added a couple more stakes wins to his CV with victory in last year’s edition of the Group 3 Summer Cup (2000m) at Randwick, while in September this year he also won the Listed Wyong Cup (2100m).

The seven-year-old gelding, who is trained by John O’Shea and Tom Charlton, heads into his attempt at back-to-back Summer Cups on Thursday having been unplaced in his past four starts over 1600m since his Wyong Cup success.

He steps back up in distance to 2000m on Thursday.

“Look, he’s had a really good year, but he’s probably just fallen off his best form in his last couple of runs where perhaps he hasn’t had the rub of the green with the way things have panned out,” Charlton said.

“But he seems to be working well and let’s hope probably that step to 2000 metres might be what he’s looking for.

“This will probably be his last race. He’s done a great job. He’s getting on a bit and he doesn’t owe us anything.”

Syndicator Champion Thoroughbreds have since announced in social media posts that the Summer Cup will be Lion’s Roar’s final start.

A stable stalwart for the O’Shea yard in recent seasons, Lion’s Roar is among a field of 12 for the Summer Cup and Charlton admits it would be a nice if the well-performed gelding could cause an upset on Thursday.

“It would (be nice), and even just to run well and most importantly, as long as he’s safe and sound,” Charlton said.

“He’s been an absolute pleasure for the stable. I think he’s won about $2.3 million and was a $60,000 purchase for Champion Thoroughbreds. So, (he’s been a) great horse.”

Lion’s Roar has 55.5kg, which is 0.5kg more than he carried to victory last year, and he will be ridden by visiting UK-based jockey Billy Loughnane.