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By Ray Hickson

Trainer Allan Kehoe would be more than happy to change plans with promising youngster Shaggy if he can dent the reputations of a few with Golden Slipper aspirations at Randwick on Saturday.

Trainer Allan Kehoe (Pic: Grant Guy)

The Wellington Boot has been Kehoe’s aim for the gelding, and it still may be, but after two easy wins from as many starts he’s happy to have a throw at the stumps in the Coolmore Pierro Plate (1100m).

There he’ll take on the likes of Pallaton ($11 in Slipper betting) and United States (a $15 Slipper chance) who have a lot more at stake than Shaggy, as he's not nominated for the Slipper, currently does.

“He’s a nice little horse, we’ll see where he ends up. We’re throwing him in the deep end and we’ll see how he goes,’’ Kehoe said.

“He’s probably the best horse I’ve had to date so it’s hard to get a gauge on him.

"I’ve ridden good horses for good trainers, I know what a good horse is and he’s the first one I’d call good in my barn. I’ve had some handy horses.

“We were going to aim at Wellington but we’ll leave it up to the weekend. He’s one of those horses that whatever we throw at him he does it with ease.

“He’s got a tough task but if he does happen to win, and funnier things have happened, we’ll have to go a different path.”

Interestingly, Kehoe had planned to kick Shaggy’s career off in the Breeders’ Plate in the spring and nominated him for the official two-year-old trials.

He ultimately decided the horse had done enough and elected to give him some more time, and his runaway wins at Coffs Harbour and the Sunshine Coast say it was the right move.

“I’ve always had a bit of a rap on him,’’ he said.

“I scratched him on the day of the trials, he was a little bit tired so I put him away for a month and he came back and hasn’t looked back. He just keeps getting better and better.

Kehoe went to buy Shaggy, who is a half-brother to his Midway winning mare Moonlight Grace, at the sales but he was withdrawn and, to his delight, was later offered to him to lease by Kooringal Stud.

In both his wins Shaggy has led, though in the latest he was asked to work hard to take up a forward position and was kept off the fence yet still put big margins through the field.

That win confirmed to Kehoe there’s something special about him and while he concedes he still has to improve coming to Sydney he says he deserves a shot, and it earned him some respect as a $6.50 chance with TAB on Wednesday.

“He ended up getting stuck three deep and they didn’t leave him alone,’’ he said.

“James (Orman) said he’d ridden older horses that had that sort of run and stopped, he seemed to excel under pressure which was good feedback from him.

Shaggy wins at the Sunshine Coast on January 25

“I’d love to see him sit off them. If he sits off them I think he’ll really explode. Aaron (Bullock) was keen to get back on him and he’s very bullish about him. I hope he’s right.

“We’re all trying to get that one good horse. I’m definitely going to have fun with him if he stays sound and whether he wins this or not he’s got good wins in him.”

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