Gold Cup goal for Kiss The Bride 

Rejuvenated gelding Kiss The Bride will have the bar raised to stakes company after making it back-to-back wins in Saturday's Shoot Out Mile (1600m) at Randwick. 

Rated beautifully by apprentice Dylan Gibbons, Kiss The Bride ($7) controlled the race throughout and packed too many punched for Grace And Harmony ($3.30 fav) to score by 1-3/4 lengths. 

The seven-year-old lost form in the autumn but has turned it around since Bjorn Baker fitted him with blinkers and the trainer believes he can continue to go on with the job. 

"I was a lot more confident today because I thought he'd turned the corner," Baker said. 

"When he's good he's good, he holds his form and when he's bad, he's bad, so I'm very lucky it's a patient bunch of owners and he's back on track now." 

Kiss The Bride holds a nomination for the Epsom Handicap, but it is the Rosehill Gold Cup (2000m) in which he finished third to Think It Over 12 months ago that Baker is keen to aim towards. 

"I think we've got to, although he's still in the Epsom. You've got to dream," Baker said. 

"This horse ran third in the Rosehill Gold Cup last year behind a very, very good horse so he's going super and out of his last race there was a stakes winner yesterday (Wild Chap, Cameron Handicap)." 

Baker made it a race-to-race double when Ita claimed The Agency Real Estate Handicap (1400m). 

Top Ranked gets on the board in Australia 

Former European Top Ranked has emerged as an Epsom Handicap contender after posting his first Australian win in the Group 3 Bill Ritchie Handicap (1400m) at Randwick. 

Injury has restricted the Annabel Neasham-trained seven-year-old to just two starts since his arrival in Australia last year, but winning jockey Hugh Bowman says it has been worth the wait. 

"Top Ranked was first-up for a long time but he is a horse with excellent European form and he came here with big boom on him," Bowman said. 

"He is yet to disappoint, but he went amiss after he ran first-up last preparation. 

"Annabel was very wise taking her time with him. 

"This race was lovely starting point for the horse. I think he has a lot of improvement to come. 

"I think Annabel can aim really high with this horse and he won't let anyone down." 

Neasham was on a flight to England as the Bill Ritchie was run and stable representative Kyle Ryan said Top Ranked's victory would be welcome news when she disembarked. 

"She is in the air at the moment, she is going to land within the next hour so that's a bit of good news for her," Ryan said. 

"He looked the winner a long way out with those two tearaway leaders, they couldn't keep that up." 

O'President and Cross Talk  vied for the lead in the early stages with the former eventually winning the battle, although the effort took its toll and he weakened to finish a long last. 

Jockey Rachel King told stewards she would have been happy to hand up the lead to Cross Talk but O'President wouldn't have a bar of it. 

"He just wouldn't come back to me at all," King said. 

Top Ranked has 55.5kg in the Epsom and as the winner of the Bill Ritchie Handicap, he is exempt from a ballot and penalty. 

Godolphin's Alegron goes to Town 

Godolphin enjoyed a successful day at the office at Randwick with a trio of winners, including a feature race double with Anamoe in the George Main Stakes and Alegron in the Kingston Town Stakes. 

Unplaced in the Chelmsford Stakes first-up, Alegron appreciated a distance rise to 2000m on Saturday, outlasting a game Benaud by a half-length. 

The performance has trainer James Cummings dreaming of the Cups, but he has a decision to make on whether to firstly tackle the Group 1 Metropolitan (2400m) and risk a potential weight penalty. 

"He might go to the Metrop, but he would incur a penalty if he was to win so I have to work that out first," Cummings said. 

"Maybe the Turnbull (Stakes) is on the agenda too, but he is going to love a mile-and-half when he gets there." 

Jockey Rachel King said Cummings gave her confidence pre-race when he enthused over how much Alegron had improved since his first up run and she felt the four-year-old also appreciated the firmer ground after kicking his campaign off on a heavy 10. 

"Back on a better track, up to 2000 metres, he was always going to run well and he showed them how it is done today," King said. 

Brigantine rounded out Godolphin's day with his victory in the final race while also providing McDonald with his fifth winner of the afternoon, four of them coming in stakes races. 

Quote of the day: "He conserves energy like no other horse. He does enough to get past them and he'll do enough to hold them at bay." – Jockey James McDonald on Anamoe after his George Main Stakes win.