Scenic Blast is gearing up for his first campaign in the United States.  The Australian Horse of the Year covered 600m in 38.60s on the Hollywood Park Cushion Track on Monday.

Scenic Blast (6g Scenic – Daughter’s Charm by Delgado) was transferred from Dan Morton to John Shirreffs earlier this year.  Shirreffs also trains champion mare Zenyatta.

Senior part-owner Elio Galante elected to send the gelding to California after he bled in the G1 Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin in December.  It was a disappointing end to a ground-breaking year for the brilliant sprinter.

The WA bred star was a G1 winner of the VRC Lightning Stakes and Newmarket Hcp in Melbourne before a heading to England where he blitzed an international field in the G1 Kings Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.  A Far East foray late last year wasn’t as successful but by then he had already established a winning lead in the Global Sprint Challenge.

Scenic Blast has raced 21 times for 8 wins and 7 placings with earnings  over $1.89 million.  His sire Scenic has sired 645 winners worldwide with a strike – rate in the stratosphere at 72%.

Scenic’s only USA winners to date have been Natural Beauty (Ire) and Scenic Venture (Aus).  The latter was initially trained by Peter Hayes and won at Sandown in September 1997 before shipping off-shore to add victories in Hong Kong (1) and the USA (3).