Mo’unga (NZ) (Savabeel) has been given the tick of approval ahead of a tilt at Saturday’s Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m).
Top jockey Damien Oliver travelled to Caulfield on Tuesday to ride the son of Savabeel for the first time and said the Chris Waller-trained rising star handled the track and going left-handed perfectly.
“He certainly got around the left-handed way at Caulfield for the first time as good as you can ask for. I was happy with him,” Oliver said.
“You just want to see a horse coming from Sydney adapt to going left-handed for the first time and make the turns well. It’s a bonus if they take it all in their stride, which he seemed to do this morning.
“He is a nice, relaxed type of horse. He was really adaptable, gets over plenty of ground. I couldn’t have been happier with what I felt for the first time sitting on him.”
The three-year-old colt has won each of his three starts, including a dominant performance in the Listed Dulcify Quality (1500m) at Rosehill last month.
It will be Mo’unga’s first attempt at Group-level racing and Oliver said he felt there was still a lot of room for improvement with the horse.
“He looks like a horse that’s still on the way up, to me. He hasn’t probably raced at the highest level yet, but there certainly looks like there is room for improvement with him,” Oliver said.
