Top hoop Corey Brown has said Suncraze is looking for more distance after the four-year-old gelding’s failure in the $500,000 Country Championships Final (1400m) at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
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Trained by Tamworth-based Melanie O’Gorman, Suncraze finished seventh. The winner was the Jenny Graham-trained Victorem.
It was the first time in 13 career starts that Suncraze had finished outside the placings. He now has five wins and seven placings.
Brown, a two-time Melbourne Cup winner including last year on Rekindling, said: “He’s racing more and more like a miler. He was off the bridle the whole race. He ran well – he just didn’t hit the bridle at all.”
As the winner of the opening heat of the Country Championships back in mid-February, Graham had a task on her hands to keep Victorem fit and sound for the Final.
“It has been difficult,” she said. “It’s just that he had a few little hiccups along the way but coming into the race I was quietly confident that I had everything pretty well right.”
Don’t Give a Damn and O’ So Hazy finished second and third.
