SOUTH AUSTRALIAn

DERBY (GROUP 1)

THREE runners in the race for Darren Weir had him in line for a third consecutive Group 1 South Australian Derby and punters were right on the target settling on Leicester, a son of the Fastnet Rock horse Wanted, as their A$4 favourite.

Settled on the speed but with cover, jockey Damian Lane was patient in the closing stages before pouncing on the leaders in the final 200 metres. Sprinting clear, Leicester’s win belied the doubts the Weir team had of him running a strong 2,500 metres.

“He needed that run to show that turn of foot, if he’d had a tough run I doubt he’d be able to run the trip,” said Weir.

“The way Damien rode him was absolutely perfect; he switched him off and had him in the right spot and more importantly didn’t press the button until the last 200 meters. I said ‘just ride him to run the trip’.”

Left in Leicester’s wake was the Sebring gelding Rezealient with the Manhattan Rain rig Runaway third.

A winner of four from nine, Leicester landed Morphettville’s Group 3 Chairman’s Stakes leading into Saturday’s win, further underlying the canny purchase by bloodstock agent Paul Willetts who picked up Leicester as a $10,000 weanling at the 2015 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale. “He was a pretty cheap buy as no-one was really that interested in his sire at the time,” said Willets. “When I inspected him he looked far more like his dam-sire, Galileo. He was out of young mare (Defy The Odds) who has a superb European pedigree, so I decided to take a punt on him.”

Willets races Leicester with Gary Johnson, with the win lifting their prizemoney to over $530,000 while providing the Yarraman Park-based Wanted with his first Group 1 winner.