Capannello concentrates on Sandown assault

With the silliness ironed out, trainer Robbie Griffiths is hoping Capannello can start living up to his promise.

The last-start Bairnsdale winner returns to city racing at Sandown on Saturday to contest a Benchmark 70 race over 1000m for three-year-olds.

Capannello showed his ability on debut with a second placing in a Blue Diamond Preview at Caulfield before his two-year-old campaign went pear-shaped.

While preparing for his three-year-old return, Capannello wasn’t concentrating in his work and the decision was made to geld him.

Capannello made his reappearance at Bairnsdale on December 13, disposing of maiden company and Griffiths is content to come to town.

“At his second run a horse jumped into the barriers and he lost the plot mentally and ran poorly,” Griffiths said.

“Coming back as a three-year-old we did a full prep with him and got him up to trialling stage but he was being a clown and I said to the owners he’s not going to win while he’s not concentrating.

“You run second in a Preview and you get stars in your eyes and you leave him a colt, but the way he was behaving we’d end up with a slow colt.

“This way hopefully we’ll end up with a fast gelding.”

While Capannello again runs over 1000m at Sandown Griffiths thinks in time the gelding will stretch out in distance.

Just how far Griffiths is not sure but he’s happy to keep the gelding to the shorter races at this stage.

“I think he’ll stretch but whether that’s to 1200 (metres) and that pulls him up or whether he gets out to 1400 or a mile, it’s hard to say,” Griffiths said.

“We’ve got limited knowledge on him as we’ve only had him over these shorter distances but on pedigree he should do it.”

Griffiths says he ‘s not getting overly ambitious with Capannello and just wants the gelding to build a profile.

“Now that he’s gelded and racing in the off-season, we’ll just take our time,” Griffiths said.

“It’s just one race at a time as he’s still learning but if he can build a career and race his way into something in the autumn, then that will be good.”