The Phoenix Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm owned Volatile turned in an impressive performance at Ellis Park on Saturday afternoon to get his career off to a winning start.
Despite showing plenty of inexperience and meeting trouble in running the Steve Asmussen trainee won convincingly with jockey Rayan Gazader able to take things easy in the final strides.
The son of Hill N Dale’s Violence broke from gate eight at the six-furlong start and after jumping on terms settled into the race on the outside his rivals. Taking advantage of the field getting streched Gazader moved his mount two off the rail as they headed for the turn but as the leaders quickened the pair seemed a little flatfooted. That was only of a moment with galloping grey soon reappearing in the vanguard, travelling powerfully on the bridle. While the riders onboard the other main protagonists started to get to work Gazader had to sit and suffer behind a wall of three horses with nowhere to go. That was still the case as they all entered the stretch until Volatile was sharply manoeuvred to the outside and following a bit of encouragement picked up in spectacular style. Even though the Keeneland Sales Grad had a good look at who was in the crowd as he past his rival, he completed a debut victory by three parts of a length, heavily eased down.
Given how green he looked in the finish connections can probably look forward to a lot of improvement from the three-year-old, who should learn a lot from this opening gambit.