News

Star's banner day

2nd Feb 2009

Herald Sun - Adrian Dunn - Tuesday, 3 February 3 2009

ON AMERICAN football's day of days, the equine Starspangledbanner provided trainer Leon Corstens and connections with visions of a possible Blue Diamond party.

Starspangledbanner produced the easiest, quickest and most impressive win of the 24 trials held at Cranbourne yesterday.

A winner on debut in the Inglis Juvenile on Cox Plate day, the son of Choisir blitzed his rivals by 10 lengths - a margin that could have been much greater had jockey Vlad Duric not decided to idle to the post.

The colt clocked 54.16sec for the 900m, 1.08sec faster than Eclair Fastpass, the next quickest two-year-old trial before Cranbourne was hit by a thunderstorm, which reduced an already dead, chopped up track to slow.

It was the first time Duric had ridden Starspangledbanner since his win at Moonee Valley in October and he could not help but be impressed.

"I was very excited by what he did, he was seriously impressive. He needed to take a step up to show he could be good enough to have a shot at the Blue Diamond," Duric said.

"He went into the Moonee Valley run at the stage where he needed a break. I think he's a pretty exciting colt. He won that race on raw talent. There is no doubt that the horse has improved. He ran a really good time today and he did it so easily."

Starspangledbanner has been nominated for a 1000m race at Moonee Valley on Friday night as well as the Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Caulfield on Saturday.

Corstens' son Troy said a decision would be made today on which path the colt would take to the Diamond.

He noted that Starspangledbanner, a $130,000 buy at the Melbourne Premier yearling sale, would derive a "stack of fitness" from being floated to Cranbourne and then having a good hitout.

"You can run against your own, but you get a better guide by bringing them to the trials and see how they go time-wise against the other two-year-olds," Corstens said.

While yesterday's trial proved Starspangledbanner was extremely slick, what remains unanswered is whether the youngster can run the powerful 1200m needed to win the Diamond.

"The question mark is whether he will get more than 1000m, that's the only real worry, but he settled quite well today and had one outside him," Corstens said.

Duric noted Starspangledbanner ran out the 900m of the trial very strongly, in a manner that suggested he would handle the Diamond trip.

"I'm quietly confident he will, but you never know until they are put under race condition pressure," he said.

Stablemate Kaphero, recently sold to Swettenham Stud which took a 75 per cent stake in the speedster, looked a touch on the tubby side in winning his trial yesterday, but Corstens said he was such a big eater he needed more work to bring him to his best.

Corstens said no plan had been mapped out for Kaphero, who is a specialist at Moonee Valley and over 1000m.