{"id":271599,"date":"2025-07-18T08:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271599\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T08:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:46:14","slug":"fork-in-the-road-for-staying-prospect-at-rosehill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271599\/","title":{"rendered":"Fork in the road for staying prospect at Rosehill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday shapes as an important day in the career of staying prospect Fioprospero at Rosehill Gardens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A son of 2013 Melbourne Cup winner Fiorente, Fioprospero<\/a> only joined the team of trainer Matt Smith<\/a> at the start of his current preparation, and he\u2019s done nothing but please his trainer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went through his form and watched his tapes when I got him, my first thoughts were he\u2019ll stay this horse, and he looks like a stayer,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we\u2019ve done with him the more he\u2019s impressed me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like him as a horse. He\u2019s a good style of a horse, got a good brain on him and he\u2019s always worked well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fioprospero heads into his upcoming assignment off an unlucky second at the same track over 2000 metre three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

This time the four-year-old gelding steps up to the 2400m trip for the first time in his career when he tackles the Mostyn Coopper Benchmark 78 Handicap (2400m)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going great,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know until they do it but he gives me every indication he\u2019s going to run the trip.<\/p>\n

Last start he was badly held up in the straight, lost momentum but when he got into the clear he closed off so to be able to pick himself up, dust himself off and still find the line is a good indicator he might get further.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the right race to try.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fioprospero is an $8.50 chance with TAB.com.au while his last start conqueror Good Banter<\/a> is the $4.40 favourite.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he shows us he can run the mile and a half on Saturday, it\u2019s going to open up plenty more options for the horse going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has the makings of being a nice horse for the stable in the new season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Smith also revealed his big spring hopefuls Headwater and Waltham have returned to work as they continue to build towards their spring campaigns.<\/p>\n

Headwater has The Everest<\/a> aspirations and the plan is to resume in the Group 3 Concorde Stakes (1000m)<\/a> at Royal Randwick<\/a> on September 6 while Waltham<\/a> is chasing a berth in the Melbourne Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originally published as <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday shapes as an important day in the career of staying prospect Fioprospero at Rosehill Gardens. A son…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[102967,102970,102964,102969,89976,83843,89978,89977,83842,89104,1071,102966,79,102965,102968,102963,102962,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-271599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-bradley-photos","9":"tag-clinton-payne","10":"tag-four-year-old-gelding-steps","11":"tag-matthew-robert-smith","12":"tag-punters-racing","13":"tag-racenet-horses","14":"tag-racenet-nsw","15":"tag-racenet-race-previews","16":"tag-racenet-saturday-racing","17":"tag-racenet-trainers","18":"tag-racing","19":"tag-royal-randwick","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-spring-campaigns","22":"tag-spring-hopefuls","23":"tag-start-conqueror","24":"tag-staying-prospect","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114873367458972022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}