Columbus to conquer The Valley

Smart three-year-old Columbus Circle returns to The Valley on Friday night and trainer Nick Ryan is hoping for a confidence-building win for the son of Street Boss.

Columbus Circle won impressively on debut at Caulfield before finishing third in the VOBIS Gold Carat at The Valley behind Halvorsen and Hawkshot on January 25.

“I’m really happy with him, last week he had a jumpout on the course proper at Caulfield and went really well and we went back to Moonee Valley on Monday morning for a gallop and he galloped terrific,” said Ryan.

“So five weeks between runs he’s freshened up really well and (I) couldn’t be happier with him.

“At this stage, coming back to three-year-old-grade BM64, so hopefully we can get a win and get his confidence up and go on from there.”

All going well in Friday night’s Dynamic Print Group Handicap (1200m), Ryan is hoping to acquire more VOBIS riches this autumn.

“In all honesty we’ve always had a big opinion of him and he ran really good in a very strong race in the VOBIS Gold the other day and the form around him has been quite franked so definitely going there confident,” Ryan added.

“Look, the horse is VOBIS Gold and we do have that VOBIS Gold day in April, I think there’s a three-year-old VOBIS Dash over 1110m so we probably might aim him at something like that and find a run in between.”

The Caulfield trainer also confirmed his stable star Mahamedeis is back in work and will return to racing shortly.

“He’s down to trial Monday at Cranbourne, trial over 990m, and then he’ll go first-up two weeks later into All-Star Mile Day in a 1400m,” he said.

 

Source: https://www.racing.com/news/2019-02-28/news-columbus-to-conquer-the-valley