Mr Brightside further endeared himself to star jockey Craig Williams with a win in Saturday’s Group 1 Futurity Stakes at Caulfield.
The Ben, Will and JD Hayes-trained gelding registered his sixth win at the highest level when he justified a $1.50 starting price to outclass his rivals in the $750,000 event.
The victory was the New Zealand-bred son of Bullbars’ 16th win, 14 of which Williams has been a part of — the greatest number of wins he has celebrated aboard an individual horse.
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In second place, on 11 wins, is Miss Finland, who Williams partnered to five Group 1 successes — the same number he has now teamed with Mr Brightside for.
The Futurity Stakes win prompted Williams to happily declare the earner of $12,377,752 can now be labelled a champion.
“He’s an amazing thoroughbred and we can call him a champion now without using that word too loosely,” Williams said.
“He’s well-performed and just gets the job done all the time at the top level.”
The Futurity Stakes success gave Mr Brightside another win over the Caulfield 1400m, to go with wins in the Group 1 C F Orr Stakes, Group 1 Memsie Stakes and past two editions of the Group 2 P B Lawrence Stakes, but few less heartaches than his first-up win in the Orr Stakes.
He again had tearaway leader Buffalo River to chase, but flowed into the race better than his previous start and loomed as the likely winner midway down the straight.
Mr Brightside held off Pericles ($9.50) to score by 1-1/2 lengths with Buffalo River ($11) boxing on gamely to hold down third, a further 1-1/4 lengths away.
“I know it was a bit more gruelling first-up but it was a more dominant performance,” Williams said.
“(There was) still pressure but he’s an amazing horse how he endures it. You look at Fangirl, who’s the only one who really upset his apple cart last preparation, and you saw her win with ease well he’s just had races that have been brutally ran and he just keeps delivering.”
The Futurity Stakes was Mr Brightside’s final start before he defends his All-Star Mile on March 16, for which he is now the $2.20 favourite.
“They were two pretty hard races so he’ll be going back to the water walker and the day paddocks back at Lindsay Park and keeping his head down for some well-earned grass,” Will Hayes said.
– RAS NewsWire
