Rockhampton Race Preview: Thursday 8 October
Published 8 October 2025
Gladstone sparky amping up for a Rockhampton double with brothers born six years apart
Gladstone trainer Ian Prizeman will showcase the old and the new at Callaghan Park on Thursday when he attempts to capture a winning double with his veteran galloper Svindal and its baby half-brother Viking Sun.
While Svindal has been there and done that for the stable Viking Sun is just starting out. Prizeman knows they don’t come tougher than Svindal. The nine-year-old Albrecht x Magistra gelding continues to back up year in year out. Over the years he has won Country Cups and Newmarket Handicaps and broken track records along the way, earning over $217,000 in prizemoney.
“I have had him since he was a weanling, he won his first two race trials as a 2YO at Doomben (June and July 2019), and although he has never won a metropolitan race, he has been a good horse to me,” Prizeman said.
A good doer, Svindal won his maiden at the Sunshine Coast in 2020 and won Rockhampton’s Capricorn Guineas at Callaghan Park the same year.
He just thrives on racing and training and on Thursday he will have his 82nd start and shoots for his 16th win, and fourth at Callaghan Park.
Prizeman, who has trained for 35 years, starting off in Theodore before trying his luck at the Sunshine Coast, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone, will saddle Svindal in the Benchmark 65 Handicap (1200M) at Callaghan Park.
Experienced jockey Sean Cormack will be in the saddle with the galloper asked to carry topweight of 63kg.
Viking Sun (Bellevue Hill x Magistra) is showing enormous promise with three minor placings from four starts, and he will have plenty of supporters in the QTIS 3YO Maiden Plate (1100m).
Prizeman, an electrician who trains as a hobby, said he came to get Viking Sun when the breeder contacted him and suggested he should buy the yearling as he had found success with Svindal.
“I went down and checked him out and he reminded me so much of Svindal, a similar nature and type and strong willed, so I bought him and his mother, the mare Magistra as well,” Prizeman said. “I’ve been impressed with him so far, he is doing everything right.”
Svindal and Viking Sun are two of three runners for the stable who will race in Rockhampton and Cormack will ride all three. His other starter is the gay deceiver Spitzberg in the BM 55 Handicap (1300m).
Trainer says handicaps are crucifying Svindal
Prizeman says big weights are crucifying Svindal these days with his wins few and far between, but a couple of his recent runs suggest he is not out of place in this race.
“He drops in class, but offsetting that is a steady rise in handicap weight, I just can’t work out why he gets the handicaps he does; he just isn’t quite up to the Open Handicaps these days, hence the drop in grade, but weights a killer.”
Two starts back Svindal ran a nice race in Mackay, when beaten under two lengths in an Open handicap and he had minor placings in Bundaberg and Gladstone Open Handicap prior to that.
His most recent Rockhampton race starts also were okay. In May he was beaten just over three lengths behind Diddly Squat in a Open Handicap (1200m) and in August he was beaten by a similar margin in an 1100m Open at Callaghan Park won by Captain Fox.
While Svindal has been Prizeman’s “bread and butter” galloper for many years, Viking Sun is his new kid on the block.
Viking Sun’s latest run was a ‘bottler’ in 3 & 4YO Class last month when he ran third in Mackay over 1200m behind more experienced horses Thormendous Miss, a four-time winner and Amberinger, a three-time winner. Before that he was placed twice in Rockhampton Maidens.
Tassort 4YO gelding Spitzberg showed a lot of promise earlier this year but just hasn’t recaptured that form in subsequent campaigns. Still, he has been six times in the prize money from 16 race starts.
“I just can’t quite work him out,” Prizeman said. “I call him my ‘Stoned Jamaican’, because he is so quiet. “He can gallop; we will just have to wait and see what he does in Rocky.”
Spitzberg’s most recent effort in Gladstone was a sound fourth in a Class 2 won by Gee Eye Why.
Gladstone is well represented at the Callaghan Park meeting. Denis Schultz has Lika Bita Fun (Tasha Chambers) in the BM 55 Handicap (1300m) and Love My Louis in the 0-55 Handicap (1050m).
The first of seven races on Thursday starts at 1.34 pm.
- RJC CEO David Aldred
