OUTSTANDING youngster All Too Hard on Saturday reinforced that he was arguably Australia's finest three-year-old after winning the group 1 Orr Stakes at Caulfield.And while the colt who changed hands for $25 million some months ago was a highlight, there was also two outstanding Australian Cup trials in the race. A jubilant Wayne Hawkes, who trains All Too Hard in partnership with his father John and brother Michael, admitted the path to the Orr Stakes was full of pressure. ''He's a wonderful ho
OUTSTANDING youngster All Too Hard on Saturday reinforced that he was arguably Australia's finest three-year-old after winning the group 1 Orr Stakes at Caulfield.
And while the colt who changed hands for $25 million some months ago was a highlight, there was also two outstanding Australian Cup trials in the race. A jubilant Wayne Hawkes, who trains All Too Hard in partnership with his father John and brother Michael, admitted the path to the Orr Stakes was full of pressure.
''He's a wonderful horse but there's great pressure on you when you are taking a horse of this value to the races. Fortunately he came through it well,'' Hawkes said.
''He's not screwed down yet, that'll come later, but I was tremendously impressed with what he did. He's shown again today just what he can do when he's asked to. The better the race the more expectation is on you to win but he pulled through today and can only improve from here.''
All Too Hard, the younger half-brother to the world's fastest racehorse, Black Caviar, is now likely to be aimed at the group 1 Australian Guineas on March 2 at Flemington which will be his main target while racing in Melbourne.
Hawkes said he told jockey Dwayne Dunn in pre-race instructions that he was ''riding the best horse in the race and ride him accordingly''.
All Too Hard had to overcome a decided leader bias that had haunted horses all day that were attempting to make ground, but the long-striding son of Casino Prince made light work of picking up his rivals.
Hawkes said that it was highly unlikely that All Too Hard would do battle again with the older horses in races such as the Australian Cup as that would also mean a change of distance from 1600 metres to 2000 metres.
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