“The good thing is we have Opie [Bosson, jockey] so we can leave him to work out what to do and there is nobody better.”
Walker is the senior trainer of racing powerhouse Te Akau and they are bringing out their big guns tomorrow to cap a great week during which they were promoted into the sixth most successful ownership group in the official world rankings, rarified air for a New Zealand business.
While the Group 1 tomorrow matters most the stable also launch their leading spring three-year-olds in two hot races.
Last season’s best NZ male juvenile Move To Strike (R5, No 1) is back and he even snuck into a private workout this Monday to be ready.
“He has had two trials and was good in them both but the course proper at Matamata has been quite wet so we took a few of them to Taupo to gallop on Monday,” explains Walker.
“He worked well and we are really happy with him. I will be disappointed if he isn’t fighting out the finish.”
Move To Strike looks a potentially exceptional colt and is already a rare Group 1 winning son of champion stallion I Am Invincible so if he steps up a level this season he could be a serious racing force, albeit he is not eligible for our two richest races, the Karaka Million Three-Year-Old or the NZB Kiwi.
With that race, the El Roca – Colin Meads Trophy, also containing Savaglee, Super Photon and Poetic Champion it looks a huge form guide to the spring features ahead.
The stable has two very sharp fillies in arguably even a stronger three-year-old race tomorrow, the $120,000 Group 3 Gold Trail Stakes.
Captured By Love and last season’s Karaka Million runner-up Damask Rose meet Velocious and stunning last-start Taupō winner Alabama Lass, the race made even more interesting by Alabama Lass drawing the outside of the 10 starters.
Alabama Lass has real x-factor and that greatest of equine gifts, raw speed, while Velocious was exceptional last season albeit she raced below that when unplaced at Taupō.
But Walker isn’t shirking the challenge with his fillies, rating Captured By Love slightly the more forward for tomorrow with Damask Rose had a minor operation to remove a bone chip in February so has less race experience.
“They are both very good fillies but Captured By Love is more race-hardened and experienced. I think she will be hard to beat.”
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.
