Winning Rupert's Tonneofgrit Heads To Caulfield

Purchased by Hawkes Racing for $425,000, the most expensive price recorded for a yearling by his sire, two-year-old gelding Tonneofgrit (Winning Rupert-Istanford, by Istan) heads to Caulfield on Saturday for his second race start. Fifth on debut, when beaten just over 4-lengths when racing over 1000m, the Newgate Farm-consigned yearling will have taken plenty of benefit from his debut run, and as in the case of most horses trained by the Hawkes family, they are given a solid education and improve consistently from run to run. With Group 1-winning jockey Dean Holland in the saddle, Tonneofgrit has unfortunately drawn the outside barrier, but as he showed in his first start, he is likely to get back. The first foal to race of the imported, Group 2-winning American mare Istandford (Istan), who had a Capitalist (Written Tycoon) yearling sell this year for $150,000 to Joe O'Neil's Prime Thoroughbreds, Tonneofgrit would be considered one of the outsiders of the race behind favourite Set To Sail (More Than Ready-Jolie Brise, by Fastnet Rock), but one would expect improvement second up.