$1.7m flashy grey colt rockets into Golden Slipper favouritism

A flashy grey colt with a booming price tag thrust himself right into the Golden Slipper spotlight with a slashing debut victory in the Group 3 Canonbury Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday.

Hidrix, a $1.7m buy at last year's Inglis Yearling Sales, boasts the exact same bloodlines as current Group 1 star filly Apocalyptic.

And the blueblood son of Extreme Choice lived right up to his regal breeding with an emphatic Canonbury performance that saw him tighten up to an $8 equal favourite for the $5m Golden Slipper on March 21.

"He's a lovely horse," trainer Chris Waller said.

"We'd given him the two educational trials going into today and hadn't really asked him to do anything.

"What you saw today is more than what I've seen.

"He's a lovely horse with some very good people in the ownership and they're going to have some real fun with him.

"He's well-bred out of the Coolmore draft and just ticked all the boxes as a yearling.

"You can't pick their colour but it's looking all right now."

It was only fitting that Waller had donned a grey suit on Saturday to watch Hidrix roar away for a hugely impressive debut victory and enter the Golden Slipper fray.

The champion mentor, who won the Golden Slipper with Shinzo in 2023, landed the Canonbury quinella with the heavily backed Confederation finishing second.

Like Shinzo, and last year's Slipper runner-up Wodeton, Confederation is owned by breeding goliath Coolmore, with Waller declaring the ultimate result a case of two very different tales.

"They're both very nice horses that do everything right but today one did everything right and one didn't," Waller said.

"The instructions were to ride them both to finish off knowing there were two very good horses in the race and that's how they were ridden.

"Confederation was asked to jump and hold a position and go a speed he's never gone before.

"James (McDonald) worked to try to get him to switch off but he made it awkward for himself and it told late."

It's been 40 years since a grey has raced to Golden Slipper glory, the last back in 1986 when Bounding Away landed the juvenile feature for the late, great Tommy Smith who also trained grey colt, John's Hope in 1972.

But with improvement to come, Hidrix may well rewrite history when the world's richest race for two-year-old's rolls around in just seven weeks' time.

Hidrix started at $13 in betting, defeating heavily-backed second favourite and stablemate Confederation ($3.40) by 1¾ lengths.

Early leader Eviction Notice stuck on well for third.

Hidrix's jockey Zac Lloyd was full of praise following the win.

"He's a lovely colt; just bombproof and does everything right," Lloyd said.

"You could see in his trials he had improved in each of them and obviously in his last one he had a good hitout which I think mentally did him the world of good.

"He was extremely push-button today and it's good to repay the owners for their expensive colt."

While Hidrix surged in Golden Slipper betting on Saturday, it was a very different tale for Incognito.

The Breeders' Plate winner drifted in betting to start at even money before fading late to finish fifth after settling up on the pace.

Incognito went into the Canonbury as an $8 Golden Slipper pre-post elect but came out of it at $26.

Trainer Michael Freedman indicated that he'd get the horse scoped after jockey Tommy Berry said the horse was making a gargling noise in the run home.

The reigning Golden Slipper winning trainer said the option was to turn to some gear changes when the horse steps out next in three weeks' time.

Picked his sister so watching this one with interest.  Hope he goes on with it.  Love a grey.  But as a yearling he was just too dear.  Mind you the way my 2yo's are going (I've only have very minor winners to date) this could be the first year I don't get a runner in the Slipper.  And I've been picking since 1972.  Maybe that means I should give up!

He,ll do me !