Timeform rates Scissor Kick’s Eskimo Prince win

The Racing and Sports Timeform assessment, in Thursday’s ANZ Bloodstock News, of Scissor Kick’s winning performance in last Saturday’s ATC Eskimo Prince S. G3 compares the colt favourably with previous winners of the race.

It also indicates that he did not have to access the full extent of his talent to win it:

“Having his first start since November, Scissor Kick returned a Timeform rating of 112, which is six pounds shy of his 118 master rating, achieved when a game second to Hallowed Crown (Street Sense) [119] in the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) last September.

“Scissor Kick’s 112 rating, however, still sits well above the prior five year winning average of the Eskimo Prince Stakes and is the same rating El Roca (Fastnet Rock) [112] ran to when defeating Dissident (Sebring) [105] last year. Dissident franked that form, going on to claim the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) that campaign and the Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Makybe Diva Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), earning a 127 master rating in his four-year-old preparation.”

Scissor Kick’s trainer Paul Messara said after the race, “He is as good as any horse I have trained. His Golden Rose run was the best of his career and I knew then how special he was. He has a massive engine and a lovely action.”

All going well, Scissor Kick (ex Back Pass by Quest For Fame) goes next to the ATC Hobartville S. 1400m G2 on 21 February at Rosehill, where he will meet his stablemate Panzer Division (ex Desert Fight by Hussonet).

Interestingly, Panzer Division’s master Timeform rating is 120, achieved after his excellent fifth, beaten only 2.6 lengths by older weight-for-age performers in last September’s ATC George Main S. G1.

Given the margin between the pair last time they met, in the Up and Coming S. G3 last August when Scissor Kick defeated Panzer Division by the breadth of a very thin hair-strand, the Hobartville Stakes will be an absorbing contest.

The two colts will take different paths after that, Scissor Kick remaining in Sydney for the ATC Royal Randwick Guineas 1600m G3 on 7 March, and Panzer Division likely to travel to Melbourne for the VRC Australian Guineas 1600m G1 on the same day.