Apollo return for Ceolwulf
Dual-Group 1 winner all poised to kick off campaign in G2 race at Randwick on Feb 15
SYDNEY - It is just under six weeks until Ceolwulf is scheduled to make his return to the races and trainer Joe Pride says the dual Group 1 winner is shaping up as a “bigger, stronger horse” heading into the autumn.
Ceolwulf announced himself as one of the rising stars of the Australian turf last spring when he claimed back-to-back Group 1 wins in breathtaking fashion over the Randwick mile in the Epsom Handicap and King Charles III Stakes, in his last two outings.
The Tavistock four-year-old is currently second favourite behind Cox Plate-winning star mare Via Sistina in an early market for the weight-for-age Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2,000m) at Randwick on April 12.
Pride is planning to kick off the gelding’s campaign in the Group 2 Apollo Stakes (1,400m) at Randwick on Feb 15.
“I’m really happy with him,” said Pride. “The aim is to run in the Apollo on the 15th of February. He’s just going along really nicely.”
Ceolwulf was given a spell after his five-start Sydney spring campaign, which netted three wins, before returning to training to build towards his first targets of 2025.
“He’s put on a heap of weight,” Pride said. “He seems like a bigger, stronger horse.
“How many times have you heard that from a trainer? But he does and he is actually, because he was racing at low 480s and he’s now 520 kilos.
“So he’s going to trim down a little bit before he goes to the races but there’s not an ounce of fat on him.
“He’s coming up really well. I’m scary excited. Because, as exciting as it is, it’s scary having a horse that good.”
Pride plans to give Ceolwulf two barrier trials leading into the Apollo but is yet to lock in when they will be.
Ceolwulf finished runner-up in two Group 1s in the Rosehill Guineas and Australian Derby during his three-year-old season, when racing as a colt, before being gelded ahead of his spring campaign last year.
He won a Benchmark-100 race second-up last spring over 1,500m at Rosehill, then was runner-up in the Kingston Town Stakes (2,000m) before taking out the Epsom and King Charles III Stakes.
Familiar Kranji visitor Chad Schofield boasts a 100 per cent strike rate on the son of Tavistock, as he had never ridden him before his booking at the two Group 1 wins.
The South African-born jockey, whom Kranji racegoers will remember for his Kranji hit-and-runs in 2023 and 2024, walking away with a Group 2 and Group 3 wins aboard Golden Monkey, was equally in awe of Ceolwulf’s prodigious talent.
“It’s very rare for a horse to have both stamina and a turn of foot, and he’s just the best-tempered horse. He’s improving all the time too, which is scary,” he said after the King Charles III Stakes win. SKY RACING WORLD
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