Many owners dream of having a horse compete in a Gr.1 Caufield Cup (2400m) and on Saturday that dream will be a reality for owners Grant and Patty Thurlow.
No Compromise gave the Taranaki couple the thrill of a lifetime when winning the Gr.1 Metropolitan (2400m) at Randwick earlier this month, and they have decided to roll the dice and head to Caulfield with the Chris Waller-trained gelding.
Victoria has been hammered by severe rainfall over the past week with several areas in the state being issued emergency warnings, though racing is set to go ahead on the Melbourne track that is currently rated a Heavy10.
Waller has no doubt that the Pins gelding will handle the wet conditions this weekend and he is thrilled to make the Caulfield Cup dream a reality for his owners.
“He will handle it. He is not the best horse in the race, but he is a Group One winner now,” Waller told RSN.
“I said to the owners after the Metropolitan ‘do you want to run in the St Leger or go to the Caulfield Cup knowing probably he can’t win it’. They simply said ‘it is a dream to have a runner in the Caulfield Cup for any owner and we want to live that dream’.
“He is there and he will handle the wet, and he is in career best form.”
Bred and raised at Gordon Cunningham’s Curraghmore, No Compromise was purchased at Karaka 2018 by his former trainer Bill Thurlow, Grant’s brother, for $40,000.
He won two of his 12 races under Thurlow’s care before heading to Sydney.
No Compromise is out of prolific producer Baggy Green, making him half-brother to multiple Group One winner Tofane and fellow Caulfield Cup contender Benaud, whose trainer John O’Shea is confident the son of Reliable Man will also handle the rain-affected going this weekend.
Benaud will jump from the outside gate in the Caulfield Cup and enters off the back of a close-up sixth in last week’s Gr.1 Might And Power Stakes (2000m) won by Anamoe.
“He is a horse that has always been effective on heavy ground and it won’t worry him,” O’Shea told RSN’s Racing Pulse.
“He has only really been in three races in his career that he could win, he has raced in races when he has drawn poor barriers like in the Tulloch where he drew the outside and went back to last and ran home for fourth.
“His first chance last preparation to win a race was in the Derby and he ran second, his first chance to win a race this time in was in the Kingston Town and he ran second to Alegron.”
O’Shea purchased Benaud out of Valachi Downs’ 2020 New Zealand Bloodstock Book 1 Yearling Sale draft for $280,000 in partnership with Laurel Oak Bloodstock.