Black Caviar may be the queen of the sprinting world, but the greatest threat to her dominance may soon come from another fleet runner from down under. Yesterday, Sepoy bolstered his standing as the second best sprinter in Australia in a big way, as the three-year-old son of Elusive Quality dominated his competition with an electrifying win in the Caulfield Sprint. Under Kerrin McEvoy, the chestnut colt broke a step behind the field of older horses, but quickly rushed to the lead and never looked back.
Carrying over five pounds more than the weight-for-age scale for the race, Sepoy coasted home an easy 1 ¼ length winner to gain his fourth impressive win in as many starts this spring. Final time for the 1,100 meters (approximately 5 ½ furlongs) was a blistering 1:03.11, despite Sepoy being geared down in the late stages of the race.
The champion two-year-old of last season, Sepoy is trained by Peter Snowden for Sheikh Mohammed's Darley Australia. Snowden called his star, “a very, very special horse” after the impressive showing.
For Sepoy, the victory raised his lifetime record to nine wins in ten races, with his only loss coming when he narrowly missed the win. He now has more than $3.6 million in earnings. Despite the obvious quality of the colt, it does not look like a much anticipated matchup with the great mare will happen before next year, as his connections are more than satisfied to keep their young star away from Black Caviar for now.
Sepoy’s next start should come in the group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes at Flemington in two weeks. Meanwhile, the undefeated superstar Black Caviar is scheduled to run at Moonee Valley next Saturday and then two weeks later at Flemington.
As racefans, all we can hope for is that both remarkable horses keep their form and see fit to face each other sometime down the road. Hopefully it will come sooner, rather than later.