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Nature Strip has blitzed his rivals to claim a second Darley Sprint Classic at Flemington.
Star sprinter Nature Strip may be headed overseas having topped the $16 million mark in prize money with his win in the Group 1 Darley Sprint Classic at Flemington.
The star Chris Waller-trained sprinter with a strong Melbourne ownership group, blitzed his rivals down the straight Flemington 1200m course on Saturday to claim a second win in the feature sprint over the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
Sent out the $1.30 favourite under James Mcdonald, Nature Strip registered at 3-¼ length win from Swats That ($34) with Bella Nipotina ($13) a further 1-¼ lengths away third.
Nature Strip ran the trip in 1 min 08.78 secs and appeared to be in second gear throughout.
"That was awesome, so much fun," McDonald said.
"Nature Strip was nothing short of brilliant today. He's just been in the zone. He's been harnessing it.
"Today, Chris only gave me one instruction. He said, 'treat it like a Tuesday gallop, four, home two'. As easy as that. Just point and steer.
"He's just a marvellous horse."
Waller was at Flemington on Saturday for the final day of the carnival having remained in Sydney for the Melbourne Cup when Verry Elleegant was successful.
He said Nature Strip's campaign last spring did not go to plan when he was comprehensively beaten by Bivouac in the corresponding race.
Nature Strip was coming off success in Australia's richest race, The Everest, and Waller said the gelding had bounced off that victory.
The seven-year-old will now be spelled, and Waller said while there had been talk of heading overseas, that will be a discussion for another day.
"We'll think about that tomorrow," Waller said.
"For now we're going to enjoy it with the owners. They've hardly seen him race over the last 18 months.
"There's a great group of sprinters going around. We saw in The Everest last start, Eduardo and Masked Crusader, they're serious horse, so it was good to bring him here today.
"It's been a long prep for these horses and to hold them up is a credit to my team."
