HEATHCOTE WARMING UP FOR THE WINTER

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Trainer Robert Heathcote is not only seldom without a quality racehorse, but his good horses always seem to fit into the bargain category in terms of purchase price … which is not the easiest of scenarios to achieve.

Buffering (bought for $22 000 – earned $7.3 million in prize-money), Rothfire (bought for $11 000 – has earned $941 500 in prize-money, in spite of a severely curtailed three-year-old career due to injury), Solzhenitsyn (bought for $10 000 – earned just over $1 million) … just to mention a few, and now, although he has only had seven starts, you can add the name of Heathcote’s latest star Prince Of Boom to that list.

A $20 000 purchase, Prince of Boom has already pushed his earnings past the half-a-million mark having won four of his seven career starts.

While there was a period of some concern when Heathcote looked to resolve an issue Prince Of Boom was having at the time, as with all of those ‘bargains’ before, Heathcote is really enjoying the ride with Prince Of Boom, a story he is happy to share.

“What give me enormous satisfaction with Prince Of Boom is the unusual story where he won a Maiden at the Sunshine Coast (on debut) and then only six days later he won a Group 2 race (the Champagne stakes),” said Heathcote.

“That, in itself, is an achievement I’ve never done before.

“Then he didn’t have a lot of luck in the Sires (another Group 2 race) … so we put him out and he came back after a three-month break from race action.

‘I openly told people he was a better horse than Startantes (another top performing Heathcote runner), but in Prince Of Boom’s first two runs back he raced against Startantes … and what happened, Startantes won two in a row and Prince Of Boom finished fourth on both occasions.

“But I knew something wasn’t right.

“I subsequently found Prince Of Boom had a breathing issue,” continued Heathcote. “He had surgery done and he came back. I had a lot of sleepless nights because you never know if the surgery is going to work or not.

“Even when they have a track gallop you still don’t know … because it is not the same pressure as a race.

“Then, when he did that up at Toowoomba (where Prince Of Boom won the Jewel Prelude in clearcut fashion) I was feeling pretty good … and, of course, I was feeling even better when he won the Jewel itself in his next start at the Gold Coast.”

In both the Jewel Prelude and the rich $500 000 Three-Year-Old Jewel Prince OF Boom took luck out of the running by going straight to the front and dictating the course of events from there … but Heathcote doesn’t subscribe to any theory that suggests the son of Spirit Of Boom is best as a frontrunner.

“Even having watched those last two wins … this is going to make you laugh … I feel he is a better horse ridden quiet with cover. Go back to his first win at Caloundra when he was last and have a look at how he stormed down the middle and went bang,

“Another point of enormous satisfaction that Prince Of Boom has brought was being able to win that $500 000 race for Adrenaline Thoroughbreds, because I have got a wonderful working relationship with them.

“They have been in the game awhile. I’m not their first trainer, but things are going really well. They give me a lot of latitude in what I do with the horses.

“I didn’t buy Prince of Boom. Michael and Paul of Adrenaline thoroughbreds did. They deserve full credit … $20 000. How good is that. It just continues that amazing trend of good horses with low purchase prices or me.

“It’s a good story.”

And looking forward? What’s next for Prince Of Boom?

“Look I’m going into the Winter Carnival feeling good. Six to eight weeks ago I was walking around with my tongue on the ground … and, all of a sudden, things have turned around for the better.”

“I think training a racehorse is as much about horse management as it is about getting them fit and getting them ready to win.

I put Prince Of Boom straight in the paddock (after his last win) because I’m going to bring him back in five weeks time to run in the Mick Dittman Plate over 1100m, at set weights … and what a salivating race it may be, because I might have Startantes in the same race.

“Prince Of Boom and Startantes are two quality horses and, potentially, I may have two of the best three-year-olds in the state.”

Startantes, it should be remembered, leads Prince Of Boom 2-0 in their head-to-head clashes … whatever those race circumstances were.

Subsequent to those wins Heathcote raised the bar for Startantes and she responded like a good horse when finishing sixth in the Group 1 Golden Rose and third in the Group 1 Flight Stakes, finishing less than three lengths behind the winner on both occasions.

In her last start, the Star Turn filly not only franked all of the good work that had gone before, but she also lifted her game again when nearly causing a boilover in the Group 1 Surround Stakes when just beaten into second placed by Hinged.

That’s a strong formline.

“The little pumpkin, as we call her, “said Heathcote referring to Startantes, ‘is back in Queensland.

“She’ll have a little trial the middle of next month and then she’ll head for the carnival.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bit of air back in my tyres.

“It is exciting times.”

More articles