Group 1 winner Subjectivist (GB) (Teofilo {Ire}), who races for Dr. J. Walker, turned in a pleasing work over the Newcastle all-weather under Joe Fanning in advance of a start in the Feb. 25 $2.5-million G3 Red Sea Turf H. in Riyadh during the $20-million G1 Saudi Cup two-day meeting.
“I was pleased with what I saw at Newcastle,” said trainer Charlie Johnston, who has taken over the training of Subjectivist after the retirement of his father, Mark. “The difficulty with any horse is that you don’t put really put them into the red zone at home, but particularly with a horse of this nature who runs over these distances.
“We’ve never gone to the distances which he excels over, and we don’t have many 120-rated stayers to work him either, so of course there’s that unknown, but both myself and Joe were pleased with how he went.
“Joe knows the horse better than anyone and he said he got better and better the further he went which obviously bodes well for next weekend.”
Although he currently holds a three-race winning streak of the 2020 G1 Prix Royal Oak, the G2 Dubai Gold Cup in March of 2021 and the G1 Gold Cup that same year, the bay has been on an injury-incurred layoff for the past 18 months.
“It’s been an 18-month rehab journey, so to have come this far is great and we’re all very much looking forward to having him on the track again,” Johnston said.
“It’s a bit of an unknown in the sense we aren’t entirely sure what we have back, and it will be asking a lot to have the same horse that we had 20 months ago. I sincerely hope we do, but we won’t find that out until he runs in Saudi.”
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