Amron Boy bolts into 2023 with a sub-29 second performance at Sandown
Amron Boy is the wonder dog many have predicted will be the superstar of 2023, and he kicked off his new year's campaign in spectacular fashion on Thursday evening, breaking the magical 29-second barrier around Sandown Park.
Relishing an inside draw, the Brooke Ennis-trained chaser went into the event on the back of a light preparation, since his outstanding runner-up performance to Wow She's Fast in last month's The Phoenix final.
“I gave him a bit of let-up after The Phoenix so he hadn't had much work going into last night,” said co-trainer Jamie Ennis.
“He went in pretty fresh and had a lot of residual fitness behind him, but I wasn't really going into last night thinking he was going to run anything special.”
“Compared to a few other races on the night, I don't think the track was anything lightning and to just break 29-seconds was a pretty outstanding run.”
The son of Zambora Brockie and Miami Fernando produced another custom come-from-behind performance to stop the clock in a time of 28.99 over the 515m journey, saluting by 8.75 lengths at the finish over Vayda Bale.
“Even though he's been beaten short margins in his past four or five starts, he's hitting the catching pen four or five lengths in front and thinks he's won anyway.”
Sandown Mixed 3/4 (515m) Race 5 January 5 2023 – Amron Boy (28.99)
While known for his phenomenal strength and as tempting as it may be, with an array of sprinting features on offer; Ennis is resisting the urge to step his 31kg chaser up any further at this stage.
“I'd really love to see him in a 600, but at this stage there's so many riches on offer over the 500 distances, there's just so many races on offer for him at the moment – so at this stage I don't think we'll step him up.”
His next assignment will be the Group 1 Paws Of Thunder series at Wentworth Park over the 520m, with heats to be run on Saturday January 14 2023.
It will be his second start at the Sydney circuit, after finishing fourth in a qualifier for the Million Dollar Chase (MDC) series back in September.
“You've just to take each race at a time and when it comes to these Group races, it mainly comes down to box draws. He'll come up for the series next week, you're playing on their turf and there's some that go a lot better up there than anywhere else and he's got to come up and race against them.”
“If you can get the right draws on the right night, he can definitely knock off a few of those feature races.”
“Looking ahead, I'd really love him to win the Australian Cup or a Temlee. He's at that peak age of between 2.5 years and 3, it's not easy to travel and win races but we'll see how he handles the 12-hour trip next week.”