Kaboo secures finals day ticket with emphatic Kempton victory

Karl Burke’s well-regarded colt has hit top gear on the all-weather.

Kaboo has booked his ticket for the All-Weather Championships Finals Day after a Kempton Park success saw him record a third consecutive victory.

The Karl Burke-trained three-year-old first took to Tapeta at Wolverhampton in September, winning easily over five furlongs before following that effort up with another success over the same trip at Newcastle in December.

The Kempton race, a fast-track qualifier for finals day, was a step up to six furlongs and a switch to Polytrack – but the 4-6 favourite seemed entirely happy over the trip and surface, triumphing comfortably by two and three-quarter lengths under Clifford Lee.

“He worked last week, Clifford rode him in a piece of work last Tuesday and I spoke to him and he said he couldn’t have been more impressed,” said Nick Bradley, head of the Nick Bradley Racing partnership that own the horse.

“That gave me plenty of confidence today, I don’t know what he’s beaten and although they are good horses, whether they’ll be up to the standard of the all-weather final is another matter.

“He did it nicely, Karl said we’d maybe press the button slightly later next time and I agree with that, but we’re happy.”

Finals day at Newcastle is now very much the target for Kaboo, with a course and distance run next month pencilled in ahead of the Good Friday meeting.

“He’s qualified now, our thinking when we came to Kempton was that it would be an easier six (furlongs) to get than Newcastle,” Bradley explained.

“That was a stepping stone, the place he will probably go next would be a six-furlong conditions race at Newcastle this time next month.

“If we’re going to send him anywhere in between (now and Good Friday) I think that’s we’re you’ll see him.”

Though Kaboo is now unbeaten on the all-weather, Bradley does not disregard his summer form and feels he has more to offer than his most recent turf run, a 10th-placed effort in the Group Three Molecomb Stakes at Goodwood in July.

“I wouldn’t read too much into that, at Goodwood he got worked up before the start and in the stalls,” said Bradley of the More Than Ready colt, who made his racecourse debut in the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot.

“That was the issue there and there is some thinking that big horses on a downward track doesn’t suit and I get that, he did lose the plot beforehand.

“He’s always had a big stride and everyone thought he’d be better at three, but at the breeze-ups there were 120 horses breezing up and he was in the top three or four horses to breeze in 2021.

“He showed his ability there, almost a freakish amount of ability because he shouldn’t have been able to do that at that stage of his career.

“He’s going the right way, I just said to one of the owners that he’d be hard to beat on all-weather finals day and we might get too excited and go for the Commonwealth Cup or something like that.”

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