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By Ray Hickson

Trainer James Cummings has a healthy respect for the task facing Tom Kitten in Saturday’s Group 3 $250,000 Bill Ritchie Handicap (1400m) at Randwick but he’s bullish that this spring will be the making of him.

Trainer James Cummings (Pic: Bradley Photos)

The four-year-old, Group 1 winner of the Spring Champion Stakes last spring, impressed the Godolphin trainer with his first-up win as a gelding a month ago and he said on SEN that the TAB Epsom is well and truly in his sights.

But for all his confidence in Tom Kitten, Cummings concedes the barrier draw put a small hurdle in his way.

“We mean business with Tom Kitten as a four-year-old, there’s big races ahead for him and we’ve been super patient to wait for the Bill Ritchie second-up,’’ he said.

“So it’s going to be no mean feat from barrier 15 to be flooding home up the middle to get over the top of these horses.

“There are good and promising horses in the field, none moreso than a horse like Gringotts for example.

“There’s a big challenge out there for Tom Kitten but if he keeps rising to the challenge then, on the doorstep of the Epsom two weeks later, he gets the gets his opportunity to lay down the gauntlet and put himself up there as a genuine Randwick handicap big Group 1 mile contender.

“That’s the aim on the weekend.”

Tom Kitten, $3.60 with TAB on Thursday, is the $4.50 favourite for next month’s TAB Epsom and Cummings is comfortable that with a 104 rating and 54kg he’s safely in the field.

That takes the pressure of needing to win the race to secure a spot in the Group 1 mile.

“I think Tom Kitten would already be in the Epsom, he’s allotted 54kg so I think we don’t necessarily find ourselves under that pressure but don’t get me wrong we want to win,’’ he said.

“It’s not just a ballot free race, it’s a also penalty free race so there are no consequences in the Epsom if Tom Kitten was to surge home.

“The way he trained on Tuesday morning he looked more like a horse that might steam home like a freight train than Thomas The Tank Engine. I think we’ve got him ready to go.”

It’s clear the patience is wearing thin with talented sprinter Aft Cabin but Cummings is prepared to forgive his first-up performance in the Concorde Stakes.

He finished 3-3/4 lengths behind I Am Me in that race and Cummings hopes he has a bit more luck when he takes on that mare and others from an outside gate in the Group 2 $1 million Yarraman Park Shorts (1100m).

“It’s time for him to deliver and he finds himself with a wide draw to give himself plenty of room if it is true that he was racing ungenuinely between horses first-up,’’ he said.

“Instead of following Bella Nipotina we went into the ruck behind Giga Kick and he didn’t get a run.

Tom Kitten wins at Rosehill on August 17

“At no stage did the horse get a chance, he was huge fresh up the prep before, and with all the stored energy he has under his belt he’s going to charge into the Shorts.”

It’s now been 17 months since Aft Cabin’s last win, the Group 2 Arrowfield Sprint of 2023, and that’s something Cummings is wary of.

“He went from being a horse to watch to our stable’s trojan horse. He’s just got to get out there and do it,’’ he said.

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Randwick meeting