Ellis Park Excels on Debut

Mark Kavanagh believes he has an exciting prospect on his hands after his three-year-old gelding Ellis Park lived up to expectations on debut at Sandown yesterday.

Ellis Park stepped out in the Clanbrooke Racing Plate (1300m) after two very impressive trials. Against a handy field, he jumped well and settled just off the pace, and finished off strong to win by 1-1/4-lengths under the guidance of jockey Craig Williams.

Mark couldn’t be happier with the gallopers performance and believes there is still plenty of improvement to come.

“He’s the real deal. We’ll just wait and see how far he takes us, Mark said.

“He trialled up well, I said to Craig (Williams) there were a couple of maidens coming up, where do we go? We got together and chose this one.

“He’s very raw. He’s very green. But he did level them out and put them away today. There’s a tonne of improvement in him.”

Kavanagh Racing paid $170,000 for the son of Dissident at the Inglis Classic Yearling sale in February 2018.

"He was just a ripping type of horse, Mark added. He felt the horse was the "real deal" but gave him enough time to mature and be ready for his career.

“We had to take our time with him but once we knew he was fair dinkum we cuddled him up. I never rush my horses anyway, but we certainly cuddled him up and gave him every bit of time.”

Ellis Park is not nominated for next month’s Australian Guineas for three-year-olds in Melbourne, Mark believes that will come too soon. Instead he will look at a Brisbane winter campaign or races in Adelaide later in the season.