Smart youngster makes perfect start

Tony Pike’s Te Rapa plan for Sacred Rebel was perfectly executed when the highly-regarded youngster closed strongly for a debut victory.

The Cambridge trainer’s confidence in the two-year-old was rewarded when the son of Sepoy opened his winning account in Saturday’s Virkon 1200.

“It’s ideal to win one with them, it makes it much easier to place them as three-year-olds,” Pike said.

“He’ll have a short spell now, two or three weeks, and then we’ll get him back. He’ll get further than 1200 metres so it bodes well for the Guineas races in the spring.

“He’s a lovely type of horse and he’s showed plenty of ability on the training track. He’s still quite new so he’s only going to improve, but he is a naturally talented horse.”

Sacred Rebel was quickly into stride to settle fourth and one off the fence under rider Vinnie Colgan.

Pacemaker Karisto and Waldorf skipped clear into the straight but once he was balanced, Sacred Rebel hit top gear in the closing 150 metres to score by a head.

“We didn’t want to run him on a heavy track and running here today was ideal,” Pike said.

“He’s never showed a lot of gate speed at the trials so it was good to see him jump and get into the one-one.

“He was giving two nice horses a head start at the furlong (200m) and he did well to run them down.”

Karisto was headed by third placegetter Waldorf in the run home and the Written Tycoon colt did well to rally for second in his first race day appearance.