King doesn’t let anyone down

The connections of Navy King were confident of a bold performance at Moonee Valley and they weren’t disappointed.

Our homebred son of U S Navy Flag produced a gallant frontrunning effort under jockey Daniel Stackhouse to score over 2040 metres for trainer Symon Wilde and the fourth victory of his career.

“We did expect a forward showing and it was a great ride by Daniel,” Wilde’s father Bill said.

Navy King had stepped up to a middle distance for the first time this preparation at his previous outing to finish a game fourth.

“He had a decent blow after that, so we expected improvement, we’re very pleased to see him back in the winners’ stall,” Wilde said.

The five-year-old set a steady pace and was hotly challenged into the straight but answered every call from Stackhouse to win by half a-length.

Navy King is out of the O’Reilly mare Eliza Blues and was bought out of our Inglis Melbourne Yearling Sale draft for A$90,000 by Wilde Racing.

The dam is a half-sister to the G3 Marton Metric Mile winner Old Belvedere and won two races and finished runner-up in the G1 Queensland Oaks. Their third dam is the multiple Group 1 winner Canterbury Belle.

Eliza Blues produced a brother to Navy Flag last season before a successful return to multiple Group 1 winner U S Navy Flag.

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