KNIGHT'S CHOICE SLAYS THEM

By Graham Potter | Saturday, December 2, 2023

The manner in which the John and Sheila Laxon trained Knight’s Choice won at Doomben on Saturday has reaffirmed the fact that the door is open to a host of options for the four-year-old son of Extreme Choice over the next twelve months.

“That was over 2000m. He was just warming up. Imagine what he might do over 3200m, perhaps in November,” said Laxon.

“He relaxes so well and finishes so well. To me that is a Melbourne Cup horse.”

And Laxon should know, having famously guided Ethereal to a Caulfield Cup, Melbourne Cup double back in 2001.

It is still some way to get there, of course, but Laxon has held that opinion since early in Knight’s Choice’s career when the gelding stepped up from 1350m to 1600m and proceeded to produce a four-race winning sequence all over the mile, culminating in an outstanding win in the Group 3 Winx Guineas.

Subsequent to that run of hot form, Knight’s Choice headed for Sydney for three runs where he performed well enough in difficult circumstance.

Saying he had no luck in the running would be an understatement!

“It’s amazing what he has done,” continued Laxon. ‘He’d travelled to Sydney and come back home in-between races and then gone down there again. Two weeks after Sydney he raced in the Mooloolaba Cup (in which he finished fourth), so it was tough for him to come out and do what he did at Doomben. The acceleration ... the way he did it ... was phenomenal.”

And that acceleration, just as it was in the Winx Guineas, was the factor that overpowered Knight’s Choice’s opposition at Doomben in what was his first start beyond 1650m, the performance backing Laxon’s call that the further Knight’s Choice goes the better he will be.

“We’ll just sit down now and go through what we really want to do with him. We’ll just see what options there are and weigh them up.

“It is just fantastic to have one like him in the camp,” concluded Laxon.

For jockey Jaden Lloyd, Knight’s Choice’s fifth career win from only twelve career starts was just as pleasing.

“He probably should have won his previous start in the Mooloolaba Cup,” said Lloyd. “If he drew any other gate that day, instead of barrier number one, he probably wins because he is a horse that needs to find a bit of clear running. Obviously, he didn’t get that.

“When I brought him to the outside at Doomben, he was able to show everybody what a good turn of foot he has and it was very good to see him finish it off like that over 2000m.

“I gave him a little click-up at the 600m and he responded so I knew he was ready. He was probably a lot better than the opposition, but he’s still got to do it ... and he did it very well.”

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