Racing: Mustang Valley saved for heavy track as dominoes fall in Hawke’s Bay

Sharp N Smart won the Herbie Dyke Stakes at Te Rapa last year.

The domino effect in horse racing has rarely been more on display than this week and that should continue on both sides of the Tasman today.

To say it has been an odd week in racing would be an understatement.

In the space of a few days after one horse slipped at Hastings last Saturday, Hawke’s Bay has lost not one, but two, Group 1 meetings, transferred to Matamata and Te Rapa.

The move of the Group 1 Arrowfield Plate to Matamata on Wednesday and a firmish track was enough to convince trainer Andrew Forsman not to start his defending champion Mustang Valley, thinking the race came too soon after her long and ultimately wasted trip to Hastings.

Domino effect: Mustang Valley was saved for the 1600m open handicap at Tauranga today instead and since the fields come out it has hosed down and the track is a Heavy 10.

Which means several of her key rivals could be scratched and Mustang Valley should be able to win, whereas she couldn’t have won the Arrowfield on either of the days it was set to be run.

Speaking of her trainer Andrew Forsman the domino effect of one win could impact his chances of another at Flemington today, where he lines up Positivity.

Positivity was a good filly last season who looks a better mare now and she won her way into the Caulfield Cup with her last-start win.

Before that victory the Caulfield Cup wasn’t really on her radar and her main target all spring had been the A$500,000 ($548,000) Bart Cummings at Flemington today.

Positivity has drawn the outside gate in the 2520m event and now she is guaranteed a start in the Caulfield Cup, her trainer realises he doesn’t need a gutbuster today, so a change of tactics to see her ridden more conservatively looks likely.

Domino effect: Positivity’s last start win may mean she can’t win today because she now has a bigger target than anybody originally thought.

Also in the Bart Cummings today is Auckland Cup winner Mahrajaan as he looks to edge closer to a Melbourne Cup start.

Speaking of Melbourne Cups and Kiwis at Flemington, that is where Sharp N Smart also finds himself today for the first time since finishing second in the VRC Derby two years ago.

The multiple Group 1 winner hasn’t won a race since the NZ Derby in March of last year but looked back to something nearing his best at Te Rapa last start.

The irony is if his trainers Team Rogerson knew next Saturday’s Livamol Classic was now going to be run at Te Rapa they could have stayed home a week longer and Sharp N Smart might have won it.

Instead he is in a Turnbull Stakes he probably can’t win but will act as his next step on the road to the Melbourne Cup.

Another Kiwi star who should have been in Australia today but won’t be is Billy Pinn, riding in the form of his career but robbed of the big time by something very small time.

Pinn was contacted by Chris Waller this week to partner Unusual Legacy, one of the favourites in the A$750,000 ($822,000) Metropolitan on a huge day of racing at Randwick.

The engagement was because of the logjam of horses carrying 50kg in the Metropolitan and could have been a big Sydney breakthrough for the lightweight Pinn.

But he will have to wait a bit longer for that as an accident in the barriers in a nondescript trial on Tuesday left him too sore to fulfil the engagement.

That accident has already cost Pinn winning on Wild Night at Matamata on Wednesday and now could cost him a Metropolitan.

Sometimes the dominoes just don’t fall your way.

But the way Blonde Billy is riding at the moment, when he is over this week’s setback his chance will come.

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.