With the race run in near darkness, part-owner Frank Cook was shocked when his well-supported Fastnet Rock gelding Sambro was scratched at the barriers in Saturday's Group III Fred Best Stakes at Doomben but Cook had another ace up his sleeve in the promising Snitzel colt Perast.
A last start winner of the Listed Queensland Day Stakes over the same course and distance, the Paul Perry-trained colt hit the line strongly to score by a half-length over the fast-finishing Assimilate (Sebring) with Mishani Bullitt (Show a Heart) two and a quarter lengths back in third.
The victory advances Perast's record to 4 wins and 2 thirds from 13 starts with earnings of $397,666.
Connections are now left in a quandary whether to stick with the original plan to run Perast in the Group II Queensland Guineas or aim much higher, the Group 1 Stradbroke handicap on the same day in two weeks time.
Perast earned a free ticket into the Stradbroke with his Fred Best win and Paul Perry's son Shannon noted a Group 1 on the resume would make the Snitzel colt a desirable stallion prospect.
"He is in the Stradbroke field now and we will have to have a very big think. Three-year-olds have a great record in the Stradbroke and he is a stallion," Perry told AAP.
"I suppose to win a Group One race is a high priority."
Bred by G S A Bloodstock, Perast advances his overall record to 4 wins and 2 thirds from 14 starts with earnings of $397,666.
Perast (pictured as a yearling) was a $100,000 purchase by his trainer from the Maluka Thoroughbreds draft at the 2016 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale.
He is the seventh foal of Zabeel's Listed SAJC St Leger winner Thousand Veils.
A daughter of the Group III placed Success Express mare Forever Dancing, Thousand Veils missed to High Chaparral in 2014 and to Smart Missile in 2015.
Sadly, Thousand Veils died in January. Her final foal is a weanling colt by Smart Missile who was sold at the recent National Weanling Sale for $10,000.
