Ravishing Captaintreacherous 3YO chasing Group 1 glory

The tragic passing of Sushi Sushi isn’t far from the mind of Ahmed Taiba as he looks to nurture emerging youngster Captain Ravishing in the hope he will become a harness racing star for years to come.

Sushi Sushi, who was trained by Taiba’s brother Freddy for the majority of his career, won over $1million from 47 career starts before injury struck in 2013.

Most of his success came as a two and three-year-old, including wins abroad in New Zealand, but Taiba says he’s taking a different approach with the highly-talented son of Captaintreacherous.

“We identified that rushing them too early was detrimental after their three-year-old and beyond seasons,” the Sunbury trainer said.

“We just have a process that we stick to. It’s proven in the past.

“We’re not out here to break track records at home. Sushi, I think for 2400m, the quickest he ever worked was 3:08.0min so we sort of stick to that process.

“This horse has gone 3:06.0min which got us a little bit buzzing, but we’re trying to put the brakes on and we try not to go any quicker than that.”

Captain Ravishing has been electric in his two career starts to date, with a big 11m win on debut at Melton on December 21 followed by a blistering performance at the same circuit on January 14 when he rated 1:52.5min to break the three-year-old 1720m track record.

Now comes the horse’s biggest task to date: the Group 1 VHRC Caduceus 3YO Classic this Saturday night.

Captain Ravishing has drawn gate two for the $100,000 contest, which has attracted a stellar field of combatants including Vicbred Super Series 2YO Colts and Geldings Final quinella Heza Son Of Agun (Matthew Craven) and Solesseo Matuca (Damien Burns), and Julie Douglas’ top youngster Interest Free.

“I definitely think he can win. He’s the fastest three-year-old at the moment, isn’t he? The stopwatch doesn’t lie,” Taiba said.

“We’ve got the fastest horse and he honestly is a perfect racehorse. In the past, I’ve never had a horse that I can say is nearly perfect.

“He’s beautifully gaited, he’s by Captaintreacherous who I think is the next Bettors Delight coming through the sires’ ranks, he’s out of a beautiful mare (Ravishing Girl) and he’s bred by Sloys, who we know has produced champion after champion…”

The VHRC Caduceus 3YO Classic is one of two Group 1 races on Saturday night’s Tabcorp Park card, which also includes leg three of the Aurora Australis series, the TAB V L Dullard Trotters Cup.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH TAIBA BELOW: