Serasana won the 1,600-metre Sandown Guineas and sealed a Group double for trainers Robbie Griffiths and Matthew de Kock at Caulfield on Saturday. The duo watched King Magnus triumph in the Group 3 $160,000 Kevin Heffernan Stakes about half an hour before their filly’s convincing victory in the Group 2, $250,000 race ran at Caulfield.
Took the Lead and Never Looked Back
Griffiths and de Kock must have enjoyed the race, as Serasana didn’t put the triumph in any doubt. The filly took the lead early and held on to it with ease. At no point in the race, it looked like anyone other than Serasana would win, despite favourite Arkansaw Kid putting in a decent effort to finish second and Vivy Air ending in third.
Griffiths was delighted with the win and said the two of them were aiming for exactly those types of victories when they formed the partnership. He was pleased they could get a Group double, especially at the good result was achieved with a filly they “thought really highly of and praised jockey John Allen for giving it “an absolutely perfect ride.”
Jockey Was Pleasantly Surprised by the Filly
Serasana is the third filly to win the Sandown Guineas in the past years, following in the footsteps of Pretty Brazen and See You In Heaven, who won the Group 2 event in 2019 and 2022 respectively. For Griffiths and de Kock, it was the first Group double that was won on the same day.
Jockey John Allen “was pleasantly surprised” by how well the filly won, saying that she gave him a nice feel the day before, but he didn’t expect she would put in such a good performance.
Allen said that he could see someone was coming to his outside, but when he clicked his horse up, she responded and “picked up the whole way to the line” to confidently win the Sandown Guineas.
