Master 2-year-old conditioner Michael Freedman is confident Aerodrome is ready to put his best foot forward on firmer ground as he seeks to shore up the first-season stallions' title for his sire Ole Kirk in the June 14 J.J. Atkins Stakes (G1).
Bred by Rick Jamieson's Gilgai Farm and bought by Singleton-based industry player Sean Dyson for AU$190,000 at Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, Aerodrome took off spectacularly by winning his first two starts.
The gelding sat on the pace for a debut neck victory in a 1,200-meter (about six-furlong) Warwick Farm maiden on a good 4 April 16, before again traveling in second spot when a three-quarter-length winner of the prestigious Clarendon Stakes at Hawkesbury's stand-alone meeting, on a heavy 8.
Aerodrome was then beaten when seventh in an Eagle Farm gluepot in the BRC Sires' Produce Stakes (G2)—the fifth and last race that day before the meeting was called off. While 6 1/2 lengths behind the picket fence-building Atkins favorite Cool Archie, Aerodrome kept coming over the final 100 meters after he'd lost ground to be ninth on straightening.
With sunny weather forecast for Eagle Farm all week, and the track rated a soft 5 June 9, Randwick-based Freedman is hopeful Aerodrome will have the chance to show his best in the last 2-year-old feature of the Australian season going 1,600 meters (about one mile).
Bookmakers had him on the third line of betting Monday at AU$8, behind Cool Archie at AU$3, with Freedman hopeful of landing another juvenile major in a strong season for his stable to add to his Golden Slipper (G1) triumph with Marhoona.
"He's come through that Sires run in good order," Freedman told ANZ Bloodstock News. "That race was a bit of a nonevent unfortunately because of the state of the track, but he seems to have come through it well, has had a good week since.
"It's always difficult to accurately assess how much a run like that on a bog track takes out of a horse, but all the things we look for in terms of appetite and demeanor are good ...
"There was also merit in that Sires run because he was just hopeless in the ground, and was spinning his wheels like a lot of them were on the day, but he kept trying to find the line. So that gave me a bit of encouragement that if we could get him back onto a firmer surface he could get back to the form he showed in his first two starts."
If Aerodrome can land the AU$600,000 winner's purse, it would clinch the first-season sires' title for Vinery Stud's Ole Kirk, adding more validation for the service fee hike for his coming fifth season, from AU$55,000 to AU$99,000.
Ole Kirk currently has an AU$441,000 lead on the first-season table over Coolmore's second-placed Wootton Bassett, though with four stakes winners while his rival awaits his first Australian-bred black-type victor. However, Coolmore's shuttler may have two chances to leapfrog Ole Kirk in the Atkins, to back his own recent and far more spectacular increase, from fee-on-arrangement (understood to hover around the AU$275,000 mark), to an Australian record-smashing AU$385,000.
Among Atkins nominations are Chris Waller's two Wootton Bassetts: Regulated Affair, an AU$11 chance Monday, and Providence, at AU$51. Should one of those two win the Atkins and Aerodrome collect AU$180,000 for running second, it would set the scene for a most engrossing battle for first season sire honors between Ole Kirk and Wootton Bassett over the final six weeks of the season.
