ROTHFIRE PLEASES IN TRIAL WIN

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, August 29, 2023

The Robert Heathcote trained Rothfire confirmed that all is well with a spirited trail win at Doomben this morning, in which he impressed when beating home the quality Tony Gollan trained duo of Zoustyle and Antino.

The now six-year-old son of Rothesay performed in stellar fashion over the Queensland Winter Carnival ... amongst other races winning the Group 2 Victory Stakes and finishing second to the much-vaunted Think About It the Stradbroke to, in no uncertain terms, confine those dark days of his career threatening injury to the past.

The beauty of the Group 1 winner (Rothfire won the JJ Atkins as a two-year-old) is that he always puts in a shift, in work or in a race, no matter how intimidating the quality of the opposition might be.

Rothfire is just the consummate professional, so there was no surprise when his trail performance was a pleasing one.

“Yeah, I was happy enough,” said Heathcote.

“It was good having a quality horse like Zoustyle in there (in the trial) ... and Antino. They tested our lad, and that’s what I needed.

“As Ben Thompson (who ride Rothfire) said to me afterwards, Zoustyle doesn’t get beaten in a trail, but Rothfire was right with him and Ben said he just needed to give him a little click to get past Zoustyle ... and he did that, so I’m delighted.

“He is only having the one trial going into the McEwen Stakes, where he is the defending champion.”

In last year’s McEwen, which was also Rothfire’s first run after the 2022 Stradbroke in which he finished third, Rothfire accounted for the second placed Zoustyle (at level weights) and the third placed Maher and Eustace trained star Coolangatta (who carried no less than 8.5kg less than Rothfire), in a result which translated into a rousing victory.

Coolangatta has since been retired, after being bought by Coolmore for a massive sum for breeding purposes. but Zoustyle is likely to be there again to try and turn the tables on Rothfire and it is almost certain that some other quality sprinters will take their place in the race to make this year’s McEwen contest as competitive as ever over the shar 1000m trip.

In spite a having a career which was interrupted by a very serious and lengthy injury setback, at a time when he was absolutely flying, Rothfire boasts a proud race record of nine wins and six places from twenty-four starts with $2 652 357 in prize-money earnings ... and counting.

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