Trainer Heaps Praise On Son Of Pins

Gary Portelli may bypass next month’s Villiers Stakes and look at a bigger prize during the autumn carnival after watching his stable star Somepin Anypin yesterday race to another dominant win in the Gr 3 Hawkesbury Gold Cup. The son of Pins, who broke the 1400m track record at Rosehill last month and has now passed his first challenge at 1600 metres with an emphatic four-length all-the-way victory.

Portelli said he would talk to the owners in the next few days to decide whether to progress to the Group Two Villiers (1600m) or tip Somepin Anypin out with the view to target the Gr 1 Doncaster Mile in the autumn.

“Potentially he could be the best horse I have had. He can stretch his distances – he sprints and then he can get up to a mile (1600m). Them sort of horses you can have a lot of fun with. Hopefully it’s all ahead of him. I think he’s still developing and still learning and the funny thing about him is that he doesn’t look to be going fast. When he opens up in the straight he just lengthens stride and good horses come off the bridle.”

The Villiers is run at Warwick Farm on December 17 and Portelli admitted it might be hard to keep Somepin Anypin up to a peak for that long. “We’ll have a talk with all the boys when the dust settles,” he said.

“A few of them I think want to go to the Villiers and I’m happy to go with which way they want to go. But my option would be to go for a break and come back for the carnival, but that’s up to the owners.”

Winning jockey Jim Cassidy also believes the gelding can develop into a top-class miler. “I’ve always said I thought he was a Doncaster horse, that he could turn into one,” he said.