Ethiopia Breaks Drought

Sat 14 Apr

Ethiopia has broken his maiden status in dominant fashion by winning the G1 Australian Derby at just his fourth start. The Pat Carey trained gelding was ridden to perfection by journeyman jockey Rhys McLeod, settling at the tail of the field before powering away from his rivals in the straight to defeat fellow Victorian Polish Knight and pre race favourite Laser Hawk. Carey, who lost his stable star Cedarberg to a heart attack last spring, paid tribute to Ethiopia, who is owned by the same connections. "Cedarberg ran in the AJC Derby and he got galloped on in the race and we thought we had a horse then,” Carey said. "There is a lot of comparisons between him and Cedarberg. "A lot of the planning goes to Trevor Delroy, who owns the horse, he's the one that wanted to hold him back and I support that strategy. "It's one (approach) that suits me down to the ground. We have been thinking about this for a fair while. He could be a bit special this horse. If you look at him, he is a lovely big scopey sort of horse." Despite the dominant staying performance, The Mornington based trainer is yet to make any firm plans for a spring cups campaign. "Hopefully you have got a career that goes beyond the spring and into the future and that's paramount for us," Carey said. "Spring is very tough on four-year-olds. We see an attrition rate every year of four-year-olds. We don't care how long we have got to wait. We will see what happens in the meantime.” Ethiopia became the first horse break his maiden in the G1 Australian Derby since Silver Shark back in 1970.