by Matt Markham
There’s a long way to go to meet the price tag, but Brendon Hill couldn’t be happier with the direction in which Cullenburn is headed, after his second consecutive win at Addington on Friday night.
Locharburn’s baby brother looked every bit the impressive individual, as he worked to find the lead early and then held off all challenges up the straight, including that of the talented Mikey Maguire to win comfortably.
And Hill is still confident that there is more to come.
“He’s only going to keep getting better and better as time goes on,” he said.
“Time will be his best friend for a long time I think, it’s all there – it just needs a little bit of tweaking here and there that’s all.”
A $160,000 purchase as a yearling, Cullenburn was secured by Ian Dobson who owned the colts sire, Christian Cullen.
He approached Hill about training the horse, and Hill was over the moon to get the opportunity.
“Phone calls like that don’t come at you every day, so it was pretty nice and Ian has been great, he’s patient and understands that there is an end goal, which has made my job that little bit easier.”
Friday night’s win followed a Breeders Crown victory the week before over the talented Master Moonlite, but Hill wasn’t going to be dragged into the idea of heading off, all guns a blazing to Australia.
“I just don’t think it’s right for him yet, he’s going to get there, but we can’t push him too early.”
The attention will instead turn toward the spring and a tilt at the Sires’ Stakes Series.
“I reckon Cup Day is a better day to get him right for, we can really target that with him.
“He’s come so far this time in and could go out for a spell now, but I’ll probably just keep him ticking over and we will look to race again late in August before we get real serious about life.”
“Ricky’s really excited about him, he said he had them covered really easily the other night.
“When Ricky’s happy, it’s hard not to be happy.”The Cullenburn win took Hill to 14 winners for the season, a figure shy of his best – but still decent considering his number of starters while May finished the term with another great tally of 93 – to sit third behind Dexter Dunn and Blair Orange on the premiership.
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