So his chances probably come down to how fit he is. The answer is: pretty fit.
He looked ready for tomorrow when winning a star-studded trial at Matamata on December 20, with last week’s Telegraph winner Grail Seeker, Skew Wiff and Luberon among those who finished behind him.
“He obviously won’t be at his peak but you want them with some improvement in them starting a big campaign like this,” says Gerard.
“He has actually grown, both taller and he has thickened up.
“He is up to 497kg now so will end up over 500kg and he looks really good.
“So while this is a Group 2 we think it is the ideal starting point for him and then we are thinking the BCD Sprint at Te Rapa.”
Whoa. That seems to miss the very tempting next step of the $1.5m Karaka Million for 3-year-olds at Ellerslie on January 25, a race Savaglee is not only favourite for but is the second richest race in the country.
But with this campaign, these next eight weeks, about boosting Savaglee’s commercial stallion worth, if the Karaka Million doesn’t work in perfectly, it will be sacrificed.
“Plan A is to race this week, go to the BCD Sprint [February 8] because it is 1400m and a Group 1, then the Australian Guineas,” admits Gerard.
“Now that can change. He is a horse who has needed racing in the past and if that is the case then yes, he could still start in the Karaka Million.
“But that isn’t the first plan at the moment. We will take it race at a time but the most important thing is making his stallion career and at the moment we think the best pathway to get him to the Guineas at Flemington is through Te Rapa.”
The beauty for futures punters is if Savaglee doesn’t get nominated for the Karaka Million the Tuesday before the race they get their futures bets refunded because it is not an early nominations race.
While Savaglee already has domestic commercial stallion worth, if he was to win the Australian Guineas as fellow Matamata-trained star Legarto did just two years ago, then he could double in value.
With offers rumoured to be between $6-$8m having already been turned down for the son of Savabeel, a major Australian Group 1 victory could value him north of $15m and make him one of the most valuable horses to actually race in New Zealand.
But first Trentham tomorrow and a race in which Kitty Flash and possibly Savaglee’s own stablemate Suit Yourself may be his biggest dangers, with plenty of horses who may not have found their ceiling yet.
Then again, Savaglee mightn’t have either.
Gerard has two chances in the $50,000 open 1600m at Tauranga today and suggests the least favoured may be the upsetter.
“We have Lingjun Xiongfeng in and he will go well after his good fresh up third but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mineshaft went a really big race from barrier 1 with his low weight.”
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
