Talented three-year-old Allibor made the most of his opportunity on Saturday in the 2020 Sandown Guineas, taking out the $250,000 contest and subsequently attracting interest from suitors in Hong Kong.
Hot favourite Aysar ($1.45) was scratched, paving the way for Allibor to swoop late and grab Sweet Reply in a close finish.
What a thrilling finish to the Sandown Guineas! Allibor gets his nose down on the line to beat the filly Sweet Reply.@wilde_racing @MelbRacingClub pic.twitter.com/0DwQDihID3
— Racing.com (@Racing) November 14, 2020
Trainer Simon Wilde spoke to RSN 927 on Monday, and had mixed feelings about the potential sale to Hong Kong.
“I don’t want to lose a horse like this – he’s got so much potential, the graph’s still going up with him.
“But some of the offers are pretty big – we’re going to consider them.
“You don’t like horses like him walking out of your stable that’s for sure.”
He added of the offers: “Close to it [the million-dollar mark].
“Probably in the next week or so [we’ll decide]. My immediate thoughts after the race were this horse is going to improve so much, I don’t want to lose him.
“But we actually won the Sandown Guineas nine years ago, and we had some offers for that horse [So Swift]. After the Guineas, he only had [two] more starts, he sort of went in the wind and did a tendon.
“My father [Bill] reminded me of that during the week… probably in the next fortnight we’ll make a decision on that, everyone will have to be in agreeance but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
