Cup dream with Hezashocka

Trainer Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr are eyeing some lofty goals with rising five-year-old gelding Hezashocka.

The New Zealand-bred has won two and placed in two of his four starts this preparation, which had led his trainers to rise their sights towards the big ticket item of the Melbourne spring.

“We’re going to give him a little breather now and he’ll be entered for the Caulfield, Melbourne Cups,” Kent Jnr told Racing.com.

“There’s a lot of nice races for a horse like him, you’ve got the Geelong Cup, Moonee Valley Cup, Bendigo Cup, all those races, they’re worth good prizemoney.

“It’s hard to find these stayers with a bit of zip and he’s going the right way.

“He’s a horse who flourishes in our Warrnambool beach stable, it’s been the making of him, and spacing his runs, and he’s just gotten better.

“He had talent, he won a group two in New Zealand as a three-year-old and now as maturity’s catching up with him, he’s able to put some races together.”

Hezashocka was initially purchased out of Grangewilliam Stud’s 2019 New Zealand Bloodstock Book 3 Yearling Sale draft by Shaun Clotworthy.

He trained the son of Shocking in partnership with his wife Emma to win the Gr.2 Championship Stakes (2100m) at Ellerslie in April last year before his subsequent sale to Australia.