Sydney, August 18 – The 1150 metre three year-old maiden at Randwick on Wednesday looked a hot race on paper with several well bred entries carrying a boom, but it was Magic Albert colt Ilovethiscity that emerged the winner and a dominant one at that.
The Grahame Begg trained colt had no luck when resuming from a spell to finish out of a place in the Run to the Rosebud at Rosehill on July 31, featuring prominently in the steward’s report, so an improved showing this time around was always on the cards.
He settled back off the pace for apprentice rider Kody Nestor and stretched out impressively down the running to zoom past the leaders and stride clear to score by nearly two lengths.
“You can forgive him that first run back on the heavy 10 track with only one trial under his belt,” said Grahame Begg.
“We were going to run him in the Up and Coming this Saturday, but then I thought it might be wiser to drop him back and win a race as a confidence booster as there are plenty of other nice races coming up like the Heritage Stakes and possibly even the Stan Fox.”
A $40,000 purchase for his trainer from the Fairview Park Stud draft at the 2009 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale, Ilovethiscity is raced by a large syndicate who enjoyed previous success with another smart Begg trained winner Handsupfordetroit, whose BOBs bonuses were used to double up and purchase Ilovethiscity.
A handsome chestnut, who is the image of his sire Magic Albert, Ilovethiscity has already won just shy of $100,000 in prizemoney with a win and two seconds from just five starts.
Ilovethiscity is the fifth living foal of the Kenfair mare Kensington Rose (NZ), whose dam is a three-quarter sister-in blood to high class miler Dalmacia, who was trained by Neville Begg to win races such as the Group One AJC Epsom Handicap.
This is also the family of champion racehorse and sire Lonhro as well as Group One winners Grozvenor, Mahaya, Niello, etc.
Magic Albert is on a winning roll at present with seven winners in the past seven days.
