Mr McCann looks like being an exciting first foray into racehorse ownership for a group of Liverpool players – which includes captain Jordan Henderson – following his second career victory in the British EBF Novice Stakes at Haydock.
Henderson owns the youngster along with Trent Alexander-Arnold, James Milner, Andrew Robertson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Brighton’s former Red Adam Lallana.
Bought at the breeze-ups in April by Tom Dascombe and bloodstock agent Ed Sackville for £65,000 the Kodiac colt was beaten three-quarters of a length on his debut over five furlongs.
He then won at Lingfield over six and defied a penalty on this occasion as he made all over seven by two and three-quarter lengths under Jane Elliott.
Dascombe now has to decide whether to throw him into a higher grade in the coming weeks or give him a break after his 22/1 success.
“He was very impressive. I thought he got a great ride from Jane, she steadied it up and then kicked on. He’s possibly beaten some nice horses, but only time will tell,” said Dascombe.
“I was very happy with the performance today – the only surprise was the price, but it is very hard to give those 6lb penalties away to horses who have already had a run.
“That trip looked fine. We ran him over five on debut as he came from the breeze ups, so we needed to take the fizz out of him – but he nearly won that day even and he’s not far off being unbeaten.
“We’ll have to go up in grade now, but as he came from the breezes he’s basically run four times. We could look at the Superlative Stakes, but that could be being greedy. We might just sit on him for a bit longer and find something else. He deserves a crack at a nice race.”
Of buying a horse for the star footballers, he added: “We went to the sales to buy them something that would be ready to run, we didn’t want them to have to wait a year to run. Eddie O’Leary (vendor, Lynn Lodge Stud) was very positive about the horse and told us we wouldn’t be disappointed.”
With Henderson currently with the England squad into the last eight of the European Championships and the rest of the players enjoying their holidays, former Liverpool striker Michael Owen, who owns Dascombe’s Manor House Stables yard in Cheshire, was left to pick up the trophy – and created quite a scene.
Owen told Racing TV: “I think that was the most embarrassing moment of my life – but I promised the lads this morning I’d do the ‘Hendo Shuffle’ if he won.
“Six of the lads have just got into ownership. Ed Sackville and Tom picked a real good one in terms of what they needed. They are new into the game so they wanted an early, sharp, two-year-old but he looks more than that now – he was impressive giving a penalty away.
“I never backed him myself but I’m sure the lads did, they did last time and it’s a perfect start to ownership for them. Hopefully they get the bug and they are in it for a long time.”
Elsewhere on the card John and Thady Gosden enjoyed a double with Side Shot (5/1) in the Watch On RacingTV Handicap and Albert Camus (13/2) in the racingtv.com Handicap. Both were ridden by Robert Havlin.
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