![\"Newcastle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/c2a72cf66d1f2a32af3fb024f64dbd7fce919a91.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nTrainer Nathan Doyle is content to give promising colt Hidden Motive a soft launch for his spring campaign at Canterbury today to assess when he should step up to stakes level.<\/p>\n
Hidden Motive won two of his five starts as a two-year-old, his final two runs for the season, and Doyle said there was no reason to rush him in against the three-year-old top liners.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Newcastle trainer Nathan Doyle is off to Hawkesbury on Thursday.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n
So he kicks off in the Asahi Super Dry Handicap (1100m) with high hopes he can notch a first-up win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt he probably needed his first-up run,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you take on older horses it\u2019ll tell you whether or not you\u2019re able to step up to stakes class, which I\u2019m sure he can.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three-year-old, who carries the same colours as star stablemate Private Harry, has taken the improvement Doyle wanted to see into his new preparation.<\/p>\n
It was evident in his latest trial performance, where the colt was cruising on the inside of Shangri La Spring in a 1000m heat at Wyong just over a week ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen this time in is he\u2019s relaxing better in his trials and not getting up and going fiercely in the early stages which is good,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cIt\u2019s something you want to see to run that 1100m-1200m right out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a super trial and the horse outside him was under pressure. He did it quite comfortably, and he\u2019s come through it well.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally, he\u2019s going to be on speed from a nice soft gate, and we\u2019re taking 2kg off with Braith Nock as well. We feel it\u2019s a nice starting point for the preparation, and we\u2019ll see how he sits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trainer Nathan Doyle is content to give promising colt Hidden Motive a soft launch for his spring campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-428469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-racing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115213142001771638","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428469","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=428469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}