G1 Goals for Karaka Graduate Mr Brightside

The Group One stage beckons rising star Mr Brightside (NZ) (Bullbars) after he extended his winning sequence to six with an effortless first stakes success in Sunday’s A$200,000 Listed Bet With Mates Seymour Cup (1600m) at Ballarat. 

Mr Brightside was bought for $22,000 at the 2019 Karaka May Sale, then was passed in with a $50,000 reserve at the Ready to Run Sale later that year. He has now won six of his eight starts and A$269,487 in stakes, with the potential for a lot more to come in the very near future.

Badly blocked when an unlucky fifth on debut at Matamata in New Zealand in February, the gelding later crossed the Tasman and joined the powerful Lindsay Park stable of Ben and JD Hayes. He finished second in a maiden race at Bendigo at the beginning of July, and he has been unstoppable ever since.

Sunday’s Listed feature was his biggest test yet but he rose to the occasion with ease, cruising to the lead at the top of the Ballarat straight and stomping clear to score by two and a quarter lengths.

Ben Hayes now believes the four-year-old deserves a shot at the A$2m Group One Cantala Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on October 30.

“I think that was his most impressive win to date,” Hayes said. “These horses are very hard to come by, and I think he's quite special.

“Off that run, I think he'd be very competitive in the Cantala, and that was all part of our plan going forward. His rating should go up enough to sneak in to the race with a very light weight.”

With the 2021 edition of the Ready to Run Sale looming just a few weeks later on November 17 and 18, a Cantala victory by Ready to Run graduate Mr Brightside would be a timely boost for the world’s number-one sale of its kind.

Fellow Ready to Run Sale graduate Turn Me Loose (NZ) (Iffraaj) counts a Cantala triumph in 2015 among his three victories at the elite level, while the likes of Mongolian Khan (Holy Roman Emperor) and Gingernuts (NZ) (Iffraaj) have also stamped their names on Group One honour rolls during Melbourne and Sydney carnivals in the last decade.