Racing
Big Dance goal for improving Headley Grange
Jason Collett has starred at Randwick with a winning treble.
Jason Collett has capped an outstanding afternoon at headquarters with a trio of winners, icing his day by taking out the feature Civic Stakes aboard emerging talent Headley Grange.
The top jockey has spent the bulk of his weekends riding in Queensland during the winter carnival but wasted no time making his mark at Saturday's Randwick meeting.
He opened his account aboard Callistemon in the Midway Handicap (1600m), made it a double on Lulumon in the Asahi Super Dry Handicap (1000m) before adding the Listed Civic Stakes (1400m) on Headley Grange, who remains unbeaten from two starts this preparation.
"He's a nice horse," Collett said.
"The tempo of that race was different to last start. It was genuinely run. He has quickened off it and then he's had to tough it out.
"He just found another gear. When they came to him at the 150 (metres) he went again so that's a really good sign."
Headley Grange is building a handy record with eight wins from 18 starts and having now made a successful transition to stakes company, trainer Joe Pride is keen to give him an opportunity to qualify for the $3 million Big Dance (1600m) on Melbourne Cup day.
"Nice to see him step up to that higher grade today," Pride said.
"That's never easy to do in a high pressure race with plenty of opposition.
"He's come back particularly well this preparation and we will go to the South Grafton Cup next. We will try and qualify him for one of the 'Dances'."
Pride's biggest headache with the four-year-old has been his propensity to become agitated in the mounting enclosure pre-race.
To combat that, the trainer was granted permission from stewards to have Collett legged up just before the field went onto the track and the tactic paid dividends.
"That's what was needed and it worked. He stayed relaxed," Collett said.
Trailing the strong tempo, Headley Grange ($2.45 fav) peeled around the leaders in the straight and dug deep to score by a half-length over the fast-finishing Welwal ($26) with Astero ($51) another three-quarters of a length away third.
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