Champ’s little brother has a moment in the sun

MEMORIES came flooding back for Caulfield trainer Colin Little after his five-year-old chestnut gelding, El Stupendo, won the A Positive Move Handicap at Cranbourne on Sunday.
El Stupendo is a brother to Little’s former stable champion, El Segundo, who had his first win at Cranbourne on Tricodes Day at only his second race start, breaking the 1200m track record in the process.
El Segundo’s time that day of 1:09.82 still stands as the benchmark for the sprint journey at Cranbourne.
Sunday’s winner, El Stupendo, has provided Little with some interesting challenges along the way.
His win at Cranbourne was only his fourth career start, which for a five-year-old means something has been holding him back.
“He’s allergic to the sun,” Little said. “We have to protect him from the sun all the time, he wears a sun vale when he’s not in the stables.
“He goes into a Tourettes syndrome sort of scenario when the sun gets on his nose, he gets a bit twitchy.
“We’re not sure what will happen when it gets hot in summer.”
El Stupendo also had a bowed tendon that kept him out of racing for 12 months but in his four starts he has shown above average ability, Sunday being his second win.
“He’s a nice promising horse, he obviously doesn’t have the class of his brother, but not many do,” Little said.
“He just keeps improving; we want to run him in a restricted 1800m race on Melbourne Cup Day but he’ll have to win a race before then to get a run.”
El Stupendo took his career prizemoney to $21,000 on Sunday, a far cry from his illustrious brother who earned $3.9 million including four Group Ones.
The prizemoney will keep rolling in for El Stupendo, but Little just hopes we have a wet and overcast summer.