Watch Me Rock Leads Williams Exacta in Railway

Watch Me Rock raised his West Australian-based sire's first elite-level winner and gave jockey William Pike a huge decision to make on streaking to victory in the first top-tier feature of the Perth summer, the Railway Stakes (G1). Pike steered the Grant and Alana Williams-trained 5-year-old gelding to a clear-cut victory in the Nov. 22 time-honored handicap. Forty minutes earlier he had ridden King Of Light when the Dan Morton-trained 3-year-old gelding won the WA Guineas (G2). Pike will now have the choice of riding either horse in the AU$1.5 million Northerly Stakes (G1), also at Ascot Dec. 6. Known for pulling the right rein in most situations, the Wizard of the West said the decision would likely give him "a few sleepless nights, but we'll worry about that when the time comes". In any event, Watch Me Rock's Railway performance was full of merit as he brought a first group 1 winner among six stakes victors for Gold Front Thoroughbred Breeding stallion Awesome Rock (AUS). Sent out an AU$3.30 favorite, Watch Me Rock was settled in the one-one spot by Pike, outside stablemate Western Empire (NZ), who won the race in 2021. Pike presented Watch Me Rock on straightening and sent him to the lead at the 200 meters, and despite the hint of a threat from Western Empire to his inside, was largely untroubled in a 0.75 length victory. Western Empire took second ahead of Sentimental Hero (AUS). Watch Me Rock's victory was special for the husband and wife Williams team. While they'd won the Railway five times previously, those victories had been as private trainers for giant WA-based owner and breeder Bob Peters. This was the couple's first elite-level triumph since becoming public trainers and, like Pike, their first since 2021-22, their last season before they split with Peters. Asked how he rated his sixth Railway win, Grant Williams said: "I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's my best one, because we're public trainers now. We've had so much support over the last three years to get back to where we were. A lot of people thought, 'Without Peters, you're nobody,' (but) we go good." Celebrating his stable's Railway quinella, Williams praised Pike for his ride, confessing he'd felt the jockey should have chosen to ride the 7-year-old Western Empire. "Pikey's got it right again. I honestly thought he was on the wrong one," Williams told Thoroughbred Central. Pike added he'd been pleasantly surprised by Watch Me Rock's performance. "I didn't expect to be that close, and I didn't expect to hit the front that soon. Credit to the horse, credit to the (Williams) team. They turn them out for big races like no one else can." Watch Me Rock is among six stakes winners from 117 runners for Awesome Rock, the 2016 VRC Mackinnon Stakes (G1) hero who's currently standing his ninth season at stud at Gold Front, for AU$7,975. Passed in at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale of 2022, Watch Me Rock was retained by breeder Graham White of WA stud Ridgeport Farm, who races him with three co-owners. The gelding is the first live foal out of What Choux Want, who was group 2 placed in New Zealand and is a half-sister to Belle Du Nord who won a group 2 and was twice group 1 placed, also east of the Tasman.