Three-year-old gelding ROUSSEAU broke his maiden in good style at Pakenham Park on Thursday. Having his second start this preparation, ROUSSEAU relished the step up to 1,600 metres and gave his rivals little chance when scoring by 1.5 lengths. The gelding seemed to appreciate the distance and will only improve with more racing and added confidence.

ROUSSEAU was last seen running fourth when resuming over 1,400 metres. He took good improvement from the effort as evidenced by his dominant performance last night. He jumped cleanly from barrier 3 to take up a midfield position, where he was rated beautifully by jockey Damien Thornton. The gelding always travelled like the winner as he bowled along comfortably in sixth position through the middle stages of the race. ROUSSEAU began to build on his run into the final turn before being angled to the centre of the track at the 400 metres mark. Upon straightening, the gelding showed an impressive turn of foot to overhaul the pacemakers with 200 metres left to run. He continued to let down and find the line strongly for Damien, holding off a late charge by the favourite to break his maiden nicely by 1.5 lengths. A graduate of the 2019 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, ROUSSEAU appears to be a talented (now) gelding with a promising career ahead of him.

One exciting part of racehorse ownership with Star is the opportunity to participate in naming the horses. This gelding, by So You Think and out of Solar Rock, was aptly named after a famous French philosopher. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is credited with influencing the Enlightenment throughout Europe and played a pivotal role in the development of modern political, economic and educational thinking.