Golden Eagle dream likely over for Crocetti after failure in $400,000 Tarzino Trophy

Crocetti wins the 2000 Guineas last season. Photo / Race Images

Don’t expect to see star galloper Crocetti again this spring.

That is the upshot of the 2000 Guineas winner’s failure in the $400,000 Tarzino Trophy at Hastings on Saturday when he led but stopped to finish seventh as Grail Seeker exploded away to win the first Group 1 of the season.

It was the first time Crocetti had finished outside the first two and he was clearly well below his best but co-trainer Danny Walker says everything is okay with the lanky chestnut.

“He seems fine and is sound and healthy but that wasn’t the best of him,” Walker told the Herald.

“All we can put it down to is the early burn got him out of his comfort zone and that showed in the home straight. So all we can do is turn the page on it.”

But the defeat means the dreams of a Golden Eagle campaign in Sydney are over for Crocetti and he is likely to have up to three weeks off.

“We can’t take him to Australia on that, you want them going to Australia feeling confident and full of themselves so a break to freshen up is almost certainly what happens next.”

While Walker hasn’t sat down with owner Daniel Nahkle to map out the new targets for Crocetti he says he would favour a sprinting programme.

“We don’t need to make those decisions now but I don’t mind the sound of the Concorde into the Railway into the BCD Sprint,” says Walker, who trains in partnership with Arron Tata.

While Crocetti was never being aimed at the next Group 1 of the season, the Arrowfield Stud Plate at Hastings on September 30, that market looks fraught with danger for punters with doubts over many at the head of the betting.

Last season’s champion three-year-old Orchestral heads the market at $4 but co-trainer Roger James says she is “50-50″ to head there fresh up as Sydney remains an option.

Orchestral will have a jumpout after the official trials at Ellerslie today but James says a decision on whether she heads to Hastings or crosses the Tasman is at least a week away.

Co-trainer Lance O’Sullivan is adamant Grail Seeker won’t be returning to the scene of Saturday’s triumph for the Arrowfield, the stable preferring to concentrate on shorter trips so she could end up clashing with Crocetti in the summer sprints.

Malt Time looks certain to go to the Arrowfield after an effortless win at Ruakaka on Saturday but the equal-third-favourite Mustang Valley will only head to Hastings if the track has a lot more give in it than it did on Saturday.

The horse who now looms as the best futures play in the Arrowfield is Skew Wiff, who ran on well for fourth in the Tarzino and co-trainer Mark Walker confirms the horse is being aimed at the Arrowfield.

“She has gone home to Waikato Stud for a few days to freshen up and then we will set her for the second day [Arrowfield],” says Walker.

Add in Pearl Of Alsace and El Vencedor, who both performed well at Ruakaka on Saturday and the next Group 1 of the season could have a vastly different look to the Tarzino.

In other news Mark Walker reveals Karaka Million runner-up Damask Rose will not race again this spring.

She was a strong third behind Alabama Lass in the Gold Trail Stakes on Saturday and came through the race well but Walker would prefer to save her for summer racing than send her to Riccarton for the 1000 Guineas so she is out of that classic for which she was the third favourite last night.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.