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📻 IMPORTANT AUCKLAND UPDATE 📻
Time for Freddie to head to Queensland
Paul Vettise, LOVERACING.NZ News Desk • April 22nd, 2025 2:44 pm
Freddie Time winning at Riverton on Easter Monday | Photo: Monica Toretto
Kelvin Tyler couldn’t have wished for his local Easter holiday meeting to have gone any better, and he now has high hopes one of his success stories can make his mark much further afield.
The Riverton trainer saddled a quartet of winners on Saturday and followed up on Monday with another brace, including Freddie Time, who is bound for the Queensland winter carnival.
Tyler is currently making travel plans for Time Test’s promising son, who put away his older Rating 75 rivals with ease over 1400m for the second win of his seven-start career.
“I’ve had it pencilled in for a couple of weeks, so we’ll have a crack at some of the better races over there,” he said.
“It’s a long way from Riverton to Brisbane, but he’s showed he’s capable of competing, so we’ll give him his chance.”
Tyler will shoot for the stars, putting his faith in the three-year-old’s depths of stamina to realise a dream.
“We’ll aim for the Queensland Derby (Gr.1, 2400m), I’ve got no doubt he’ll stay the distance,” he said.
Tyler has yet to lock in a lead-up program to the classic and whether he follows the traditional path of the Gr.3 Rough Habit Plate (2000m) on May 17 into the Derby a fortnight later.
“We could go a softer way, there’s a nice race at Ipswich as an option but we’ll see how he travels over there and settles in,” he said.
On that score, Tyler is confident Freddie Time will cope admirably with the travel, having already had a trip away to Trentham.
He was unplaced in the Gr.2 Wellington Guineas (1400m) and then stepped up to run fourth in the Gr.3 Manawatu Classic (2100m) and only 1.3 lengths off the winner Kiwi Skyhawk, who also won Saturday’s Gr.3 Championship Stakes (2100m).
“Nothing really seems to worry him, and he’ll be the only one going over,” Tyler said.
Freddie Time was originally bound for Karaka as part of Clearview Park Stud’s draft to New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sale.
“He failed a scope, and I’ve had a few horses off the owner, Mike McSweeney, and he rang me about 15 months ago and offered him to me,” Tyler said.
“We broke him in and everything seemed to be fine, so we just carried on and he’s developed into a really good racehorse. We’ve got a gentleman’s agreement and lease him at this stage.”
Tyler knows the family well and trained Freddie Time’s half-brother Timy Tyler to win nine races, including the Gr.3 Winter Cup (1600m).
“I had another half-brother called Our Boy Scotty and he was a good horse but broke down early in his career,” Tyler said.
