{"id":5843,"date":"2015-04-01T12:52:52","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T02:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/?p=5843"},"modified":"2015-04-01T13:02:20","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T03:02:20","slug":"moment-of-truth-for-halls-apollo-after-dirt-trial-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/?p=5843","title":{"rendered":" Moment of truth for Hall’s Apollo after dirt trial win"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Apollo's<\/a>

Apollo’s Choice (Douglas Whyte) has the better of the grey Level Player (Andreas Suborics) in a dirt trial at Sha Tin on Tuesday. Photo: Kenneth Chan<\/p><\/div>\n

Apollo\u2019s Choice had his classic aspirations ended before they even started but the David Hall-trained Australian import may yet collect some cheques this season after a confidence-building dirt trial win at Sha Tin on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

A two-time winner over sprint trips and third in the Group Two Sandown Guineas over a mile, Apollo\u2019s Choice ran once over 1,400m for Hall before a tendon injury picked up in trackwork sidelined the son of Choisir and put paid to any chance of pushing for a place in the four-year-old races.<\/span><\/p>\n

A gelding operation followed in early November and Apollo’s Choice returned with a game unplaced effort over 1,400m after jumping from gate 10 and sitting wide in an on-pace dominated contest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stepping up to a mile in a competitive Class Two, Apollo’s Choice was a sound fifth, hitting the front briefly in the straight before being overwhelmed by some race-fit opposition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apollo’s Choice is now rated 83, down from 86 when he arrived, and yesterday’s 1,200m heat win will have him up to the mark fitness-wise for his next race start.<\/span><\/p>\n

Douglas Whyte has ridden Apollo’s Choice at his last two starts and was aboard in the trial, getting a clean break to find the box seat in a slowly run trial. When trial leader Level Player drifted from the fence in the straight, Whyte seized an opportunity to give Apollo’s Choice a nice blow-out over the final 200m, booting up on the inside to score by a nose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though the overall time of 1.11.01s was slow on a track that has been playing faster than ever, the final 400m of 22.8s indicated that the final furlong was a decent test.<\/span><\/p>\n

Link to trial replay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Article: Moment of truth for Hall’s Apollo after dirt trial win<\/a>
\nAccessed: 01 Apr 15
\nSouth China Morning Post by Michael Cox <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apollo\u2019s Choice had his classic aspirations ended before they even started but the David Hall-trained Australian import may yet collect some cheques this season after a confidence-building dirt trial win at Sha Tin on Tuesday. A two-time winner over sprint … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5843"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5851,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions\/5851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauristonfarm.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}