Another huge day at the office for Victoria\u2019s Champion Sire with Work The Room becoming Bel Esprit\u2019s 12th stakes winner and Bel Sprinter maintaining his unbeaten record with a resounding win at headquarters.<\/p>\n
WORK THE ROOM<\/b><\/span> BEL SPRINTER<\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another huge day at the office for Victoria\u2019s Champion Sire with Work The Room becoming Bel Esprit\u2019s 12th stakes winner and Bel Sprinter maintaining his unbeaten record with a resounding …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
There are few more deserving black type winners than the Robert Heathcote trained Work The Room.
Originally with Colin Little at Caulfield, the Bel Esprit flyer won his first two outings \u2013 at Ballarat and Sandown \u2013 but was then off the scene for 15 months, resuming with a second at Geelong after striking a ton of trouble.
Work The Room won again at Sandown last September and produced a game second at Flemington on New Year\u2019s Day but was tipped out shortly after and was then transferred to Heatchote where he ran third at Doomben as favourite.
Despite failing to salute in three subsequent runs, he was back to his best in the Tattersall\u2019s Mile-LR at Eagle Farm on Saturday, racking up the even dozen for Bel Esprit.
\u201cLook, this is a very good horse and I think a lot of people dropped off a bit too quickly,\u201d Heathcote said. \u201cHe had problems when he came here from Melbourne and it has been a matter of working them out. It was a big decision by the owners to send him here and I think it will prove the right move.\u201d
Heathcote said he is looking to step Work The Room, a half brother to multiple Group One winner Zipping, up in distance: \u201cThere is a 2100 metre open handicap here in a fortnight which will suit him. Melbourne is probably off the agenda at this stage because of the timing. But you can take it as read that there is a very good race in this horse.\u201d
A $160,000 Inglis Easter yearling, Work the Room \u2013 from the Grand Lodge mare Social Scene and bred by Eddie Hayson (also owner of Group One winner and stallion Wanted) \u2013 has now won four and placed on five occasions from 13 starts.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to keep the excitement in check when a horse like Bel Sprinter lobs on the scene.
Kicking off with a win just after Christmas \u2013 over 1000m at Mornington \u2013 Bel Sprinter resumed with a solid victory at the Valley (coming from near last on the turn) before grinding out a solid score in the King Island Dairy Handicap (1100m) at headquarters on Saturday, racing on the speed throughout. Three from three!
And it looks now as if the 3YO \u2013 from the Snippets mare Gavroche \u2013 will be targeting the $125,000 Aurie\u2019s Star Handicap-G3 (1200m) on 6 August.
Not surprisingly, trainer Jason Warren has a huge opinion of Bel Sprinter: \u201cHe was a bit fired up prior to the race today and I was a bit worried be might overrace.
\u201cBenny (Melham) just kept him where he was comfortable, (but) I thought he might have pushed the button a little bit early. I wouldn\u2019t like to have it all over again.
\u201cHe\u2019s done a terrific job. He\u2019s only a baby, he doesn’t know what he\u2019s doing and he was in front a long way out. They had their chance to get to him today: full credit to the horse.
\u201cI aim pretty high with all of my horses and where I finish up is a different story usually. He might be the horse, he can\u2019t do anymore than what he has done.
\u201cSince we gave him his first jump-out I was very confident of the horse\u2019s ability and it is good to see him putting it on the form now.\u201d
Jockey Ben Melham has ridden Bel Sprinter (pictured below<\/i>) in all of his three starts and feels there is more to come: \u201cHe jumped and put himself there and I was concerned about that because he was travelling quite strong,\u201d Melham said. \u201cIt was a good effort.
\u201cHe is best suited ridden with a bit of a sit. As circumstances panned out he ended up there [the front]. If he can get back and mature a bit mentally and learn how to relax more he is going to win decent races for sure.
\u201cWhen the penny drops with him he is going to become quite a nice horse.\u201d<\/p>\n