Wooton You Know has shown why connections tried to qualify him for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic earlier this year.
He announced himself as a promising youngster when he broke through in a QTIS 2YO Maiden (1000m) at the Sunshine Coast for trainer Stuart Kendrick and jockey Brandon Larena yesterday (Monday, May 24).
The $2.25 favourite was having just his second career start and his first run back from a let-up after an earlier appearance on the Gold Coast during the Magic Millions carnival in January.
Kendrick admitted the stable had initially “thrown him in the deep end” in an effort to qualify for the rich juvenile feature.
“He’s a lovely horse,” Kendrick said.
“He’s always shown us plenty of ability and we threw him in the deep end. It was probably a bit of a rush to try and get in there,” he said.
“And then we just tipped him out afterwards, gave him some time.”
Kendrick said a disrupted preparation had limited the horse’s lead-up work heading into Sunday’s assignment.
“We sort of had two issues obviously with wet tracks and trials and everything else,” Kendrick said.
“So, he’s only gone into this on one jump-out. And yeah, we just sort of used this as another jump out for him,” he said.
“So it was good to see him do that.”
Despite the victory over the sprint trip, Kendrick believes Wooton You Know will be even better suited as he matures and steps up in distance.
“He’s a horse we’ve always thought he’d be a nice 1400 to a miler,” he said.
“It might be a little bit too quick now (for the Brisbane winter carnival), obviously. But we’ll place him over the next couple of months and get a couple of wins on the board and see where we go from there.”