A look at how the wins of Icarian Drean, Pallaton stack ratings-wise.
There were two significant two-year-olds races last Saturday and Trent Crebbin looks at the performances of Icarian Dream and Pallaton from a ratings perspective.
Eagle Farm – B J McLachlan Stakes
A key reference to the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, Icarian Dream won the Group 3 B J McLachlan Stakes (1200m) with a Racing And Sports rating of 101, which isn't particularly strong for this race historically.
Storm Boy ran to 107 last year and then improved to 116 in the Magic Millions while Coolangatta ran 104 here and then 109 in the Millions.
Icarian Dream, a $300,000 Gold Coast yearling, has raced four times now and gone 90-100-98-101, which sees the daughter of Blue Point second pick in the market for a wide open Magic Millions, certainly with no standout horse as yet.
A typical McLachlan winner has rated around the 104-105 mark while the Magic Millions 2YO Classic has taken anywhere from 105-116 to win, with 110+ being a typical winning standard.
This year, so far, looks fairly thin with Memo (rated 99) favourite. She was unlucky in the Wyong Magic Millions won by O' Ole (rated 101), which is as good as Icarian Dream has gone on Saturday.
We've also touched on impressive Melbourne debut winner Invincible Woman who ran to 100 at Caulfield Heath, although not seeing her again before the Gold Coast is tricky.
This doesn't look a particularly strong group of juveniles, but as is always the case, they can improve out of sight very quickly, especially when getting into races with high pressure.
Randwick – Pallaton
While one from the Magic Millions group hasn't quite yet put their hand up, we did see a Golden Slipper fancy emerge at Randwick as Pallaton came clear late over 1000m to score by a widening 2.8 lengths, running to a RAS rating of 102 in the process.
Cracking the 100 mark on debut is always a good sign and the time figure looks nice and warm.
In terms of two-year-old's so far this season, Pallaton at 102 is up there. North England tops the list at 104 off his Golden Gift win ahead of the late King Kirk, Bel Merci and Palm Angel all at 103.
While it's easy to get excited about a smart two-year-old on debut, which Pallaton – a son of boom Coolmore stallion Wootton Bassett – certainly is, there's a long way to go before we get serious.
Even looking at this meeting over the past few years, Straight Charge ran to 109 winning this race (over 1100m) while Fire Lane ran 103 the year prior.
Pallaton doing what he's done on debut is plenty promising, and he's up there with the best juveniles we've seen so far, but there will be plenty more who put their hand up in the new year.
