Brayden Star shines in Shooting Star

Promising import Brayden Star has made a winning Australian debut, taking out the Shooting Star at Cranbourne on Saturday.

BRAYDEN STAR winning the Freeway Ford Shooting Star at Cranbourne in Australia.
BRAYDEN STAR winning the Freeway Ford Shooting Star at Cranbourne in Australia. Picture: Racing Photos.

The hype around Brayden Star leading into the Cranbourne Shooting Star, a rare class 3 race worth $175,000 was justified as the lightly raced northern hemisphere three-year-old broke the 1500m track record with a comfortable … length win.

Sent around a … favourite off the back of a 7.5 length win at Salisbury and a pair of impressive Cranbourne jump outs, Brayden Star notched up the second win on hometown Cup day for local trainers Trent Busuttin And Natalie Young, with Young excited by the lightly raced prospect.

"I thought it was a great performance… to be three deep the whole way pretty much with cover though and then put them away nicely without any hard riding I thought we've got a really exciting horse going forward," Young said.

The immediate racing future of the entire is yet to be decided but given his strength late in a track record time and his win at Salisbury, a rise in trip seems imminent.

"He's run a track record here today and he's nowhere near trained up yet, he's really a 2000-metre horse, to do that today it just means he's going to be a really nice horse but he's low in the ratings," Young said.
"He's got to go through the grades and this time next year I think we've got a serious horse."

Jockey Damien Oliver, who also made it a double following a win aboard Kissinger in Race 3, suggested there was plenty more to come from Brayden Star as he matures.

"He's a lovely horse but he still feels quite immature. He's only a three-year-old by European time and he's got nice upside. But he just feels like you wouldn't want to go too deep in this prep and I think you'll really benefit the next prep," Oliver said.

The Group 3 Eclipse Stakes (1800m) remains a potential next target, set to be run at Caulfield rather than Sandown this year on Zipping Classic Day (26th of November).


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