Frankie Ferocious Photo by Dan Costello
TRAINER Ben Crosby thinks one-time budding star Frankie Ferocious can wind back the clock in Saturday night’s $75,000 Group 2 Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park.
Frankie Ferocious, who won the 2024 Chariots Of Fire and ran a slashing fourth in the Miracle Mile a week later, has been somewhat in the wilderness since.
It’s more than a year since he returned to Crosby after scaling great heights for Jason Grimson and only now is showing signs of being back to his best.
“This is as good as he’s been in a long time,” Crosby said. “If you’d the times he ran in a trial here (Albion Park) the other day, you’d agree with me.
“We’ve had this race in mind and now he’s drawn well, too.
“The likely scenario is he gets out quickly and we sit on Hi Manameisjeff, then get our shot at him in the straight.
“That’s how you have to drive him and that’s how he can win a big race like this.”
Frankie Ferocious won back-to-back Albion Park races in August before a couple of good seconds then a fourth on September 27.
Crosby has kept him fresh and used two recent Albion Park trials to sharpen him up for a first-up tilt this week.
Although renowned for his speed, Crosby said Frankie Ferocious would head to Saturday week’s $250,000 Group 1 Blacks A Fake if he ran as well as expected this week.
“We know how he’s got to be driven and it limits his chances in big races, but that’s just how it is,” he said.
“We’ve got Captain Shuffle in this week, too, but even if he won well, we probably wouldn’t look at the Blacks A Fake with him. He doesn’t run the 2600m strongly, we’ve tried a few times.”
PHOTO: Dan Costello
