It’s unfair to compare different generations and their champions, but it is becoming a necessary reference point for Anamoe.
The Godolphin entire’s star remains on the rise as a rare group 1 winner at very preparation since he was an autumn two-year-old, but it will be the next six months that will define his career.
Anamoe has won four group 1s but he could become a reference for greatness in the next six months.Credit:Getty
Even though he was a group 1 winner at two and three (both in the spring and the autumn) and four on his return in the Winx Stakes last month, it’s what is front of him that could make him a champion and a reference point himself.
“It takes a specific type of animal to be able to do what has done,” Godolphin boss Vin Cox said.
“He has always been a lighter framed type of horse, so he has been able to cope with the rigours of training and racing. We could have retired him on what he has done, but he deserves a chance to show how good he is.
“We got a barn mate waiting for him, Lonhro, that raced into his five-year-old year and became a household name, and that’s what we would like to think could happen for Anamoe.
“He hasn’t got that rockstar factor about him just yet, but we can feel it coming because he is very popular.
“We have given him the chance to earn that on the track.”
Anamoe is the alpha male of his generation, and the way he presents these days emphasises that. It’s why he’ll draw punters to the mounting yard before his clash with Zaaki in the George Main Stakes at Randwick on Saturday.
However, the reason he is still at the track and not at stud is his seconds in the Golden Slipper, Golden Rose and Cox Plate, where it can be argued he could have been the winner on each occasion.
“The races he has run placings in, I think you would struggle to find another horse that has done that,” trainer James Cummings said.
“He’s in that boat with horses like So You Think and Shamus Award, who ran in a Cox Plate when they were shy of their actual third birthday.
“He was always going to have loads of upside as he developed and as he got older. He improved from two to three; he got a little stronger and a little more settled.
“Now he has more natural pace in these weight-for-age races, so he is well suited to weight-for-age racing, which is a different test and the best test of your horse.”
Anamoe has a better record than Lonhro to this point of his career given his devastating wins in the Sires’ Produce Stakes and Rosehill Guineas to go alongside a Caulfield Guineas and now a Winx Stakes. But he doesn’t have the Cox Plate of So You Think and Shamus Award, which he is targeting next month.
Jockey James McDonald has been with Anamoe on the journey but thinks he is about to show himself to be best in the land.
“He has always had a hell of a lot of ability, but sometimes he hasn’t helped himself,” McDonald said. “When you hop on him, you can feel he is so good; just cantering or trotting him to the gates and you know you’re on a proper, proper horse.
“Now he is getting stronger and stronger and stronger, and he is a lot more adaptable.
“He is stronger mentally more than anything, which makes him better physically. He is so smooth, so smooth.
“He conserves energy better than any horse around in a race. But now you can put him there and conserve and then surge.
“It’s a great combination.”
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