Oxted Becomes Another Candidate For Hong Kong Trip

The Roger Teal trained Oxted will be raced through the winter according to his trainer with strong options of races in both Hong Kong and Dubai taking the handlers fancy at the moment.

Oxted has bounced onto the racing scene this term having showed huge promise as a juvenile when landing his final contest in September, he has gone on to do things for his handler they never thought would be possible.

After building in size and maturing for the winter, Oxted started his three year old career in the Group Three Abernant Stakes, seeing off a decent field of seven runners who have previous group race experience.

Having looked very professional at Newmarket he was sent back there for his first experience in a Group One with the July Cup over six furlongs attracting a superstar field of runners.

Roger Teal's sprinter saw off the classy group to land his first ever black type victory with his jockey, the young Cieren Fallon also landing his first ever Group One success.

Last time out the black type winner could only finish fifth of 16 runners in the Champion Sprint Stakes where he was only length behind the winner Glen Shiel, and his trainer believes that the heavy ground did not play to his strengths.

The Lambourn trainer said: “He’s fine. He’s come out of the race well – no ill effects, so that’s good.

“He was probably just a bit too keen early, and we paid the price late on. There was no pace early. Obviously a stronger pace would have helped us.

“On better ground he’d probably have kept on going. He handled the ground, but I think his stamina ran out over the stiff six.

“That ground blunted his speed a bit. The petrol gauge was going empty, because he was too keen early.

“He didn’t show himself up. He ran with credit, (and) I’m just pleased we’ve got a genuine Group One horse. He ran a stormer.”

With his British campaign up for the season Teal is now looking to keep his stable star going through the winnter abroad and his handler is very excited about where Oxted could take him.

He added: “We’ve been invited possibly to Hong Kong, but I think we’re going to see what happens with him and maybe go to Dubai next year.

“We might go out there possibly for Super Saturday and World Cup night for the Al Quoz.

“It’s not definite, but to be fair to the horse we might concentrate on that. We’ll be guided by him over the next week or so.

“We’ve got next year to look forward. I don’t want to put too many miles on the clock. We’ve got an exciting year to look forward to next year.”