Tomorrow’s field brings together some of our brightest young talents, from Poetic Champion to Auckland Guineas winner Yaldi, NZB Kiwi runner Ardalio and a string of horses who would be on the shopping lists of overseas buyers if they were on the market.
On top of all that comes last season’s champion 2-year-old filly Velocious, who resumed with a win last start after missing most of the season with a throat issue, but was dazzling beating the older horses in her comeback race.
She will try to add to trainer Stephen Marsh’s career-best black-type season and kickstart a weekend that sees him represented by El Vencedor in the HK$28 million QEII Cup in Hong Kong on Sunday.
Velocious may be the horse to beat tomorrow, with barrier three ideal and enough freshness in her legs to still be potent at 1200m second up.
But an interesting piece to the Breeders puzzle will be the weather, with Te Rapa expected to have dried out well over the past few days, but rain still possible tomorrow.
If any rain did arrive, it would seem certain to dull Velocious, as all five of her wins have come on good tracks while she has run only one placing in three starts on soft ground, rare numbers these days when so many tracks easily fall into the Soft 5 range.
But rival Cambridge trainer Pike says any rain wouldn’t bother Poetic Champion, who is every bit as fast as Velocious without the record to back it up.
“He is a very good sprinter and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the Telegraph next season,” says Pike.
“We have targeted this race because we think he is better left-handed and he trialled very well a few weeks ago.
“If the rain did come, he would love it, but he will be extremely competitive regardless. But it is a very good field.”
Any one of Ardalio, Yaldi, Whiskey N Roses, I’m All In or Archaic Smile could also win without surprising in what will be one of the best races of the autumn.
The $150,000 Travis Stakes later in the programme brings together class mares with vastly different records, from a weight-for-age performer like Town Cryer to New Zealand Cup winner Mehzebeen and Waikato and Avondale Cups winner Blue Sky At Night.
That could make tempo a major deciding factor, as a free-rolling mare like Town Cryer could be too fast for the Cups queens if she gets her own way.
But if it becomes more of a stamina test, then either of the Cup winners could prevail, as could Islington Lass and Electron, the latter backing up from the Easter Handicap last Saturday.
Pike has Val Di Zoldo in the Travis and she is another of the hopes, while he also suggests punters follow his debutante juvenile Argo (R4, No 3) in a race where The Espy sticks out as the only previous winner.
“And we have Witz End [R5, No 7] in the open 1400m and he is always a chance in this grade.”
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.
