Racing: Babies in tight battle

Fromm (outer) beats Rio Fortune at Te Rapa last month. His clash with unbeaten Prince of Wales will be a highlight at Ellerslie.

Prince of Wales and Fromm have sparkling form but the chances don't end there

It's a fair bet Craig Grylls will be watching tomorrow's $50,000 Maltby's Great Northern Foal Stakes at Ellerslie on television in Brisbane.

The high-profile New Zealand apprentice has been the regular rider of the two Foal Stakes favourites Prince of Wales and Fromm, but will be at Doomben races tomorrow.

Prince of Wales is unbeaten in two starts and Fromm is one from one. Craig Grylls has been the rider on each of the three occasions.

Grylls decided to take a month at the Queensland winter carnival, where he is riding members of the Moroney team and is engaged for his $150,000 Rotorua Cup winner Tinseltown in the A$300,000 ($382,000) Brisbane Cup on June 6.

Prince of Wales will be ridden by Michael Coleman and Sam Spratt will partner Fromm.

The form on paper looks admirable through the entire field - Awapuni-trained Justanexcuse is unbeaten in two runs - but the heavy track conditions make it a very tricky race.

Prince of Wales won on debut on a good surface at Avondale then struck a slow-rated track at Tauranga, but his race was early on the programme before the surface broke up.

Fromm's debut win was on a perfect track at Te Rapa and although the rating was slow when Justanexcuse won on debut at Trentham, the 1200m time of 1.10.38 tells a story.

Trainers Paul Moroney (Prince Of Wales) and Stephen McKee, who trains Fromm, are hopeful rather than confident their juveniles will manage the conditions.

"You never know until they try it, but 2-year-olds will generally do their best in wet conditions," said McKee.

A big help will be the fact that both horses looked tough, determined types when pressure was applied under race conditions.

Fromm had to survive a final 300m battle to win narrowly at Te Rapa and McKee declared there was improvement in the filly.

Some of the stock of her sire O'Reilly are able to show form on winter tracks.

This is an interesting field given the conditions.

Bally Duff from the Logan/Gibbs stable looked a huge talent on debut when he flashed home to be narrowly beaten by the talented Donthassleme, who subsequently went on to totally destroy a strong field at Te Aroha before being spelled.

Bally Duff probably doesn't have to improve greatly on that to be a major threat here. In the conditions, the outside barrier draw is likely to be more of an advantage than a disadvantage.

If Justanexcuse is to be a danger, then so too is Flying Fulton, who finished fast to be only a half-head behind him at Woodville last start.

Green Supreme looked as though the experience would do him the world of good when he finished sixth at his first raceday appearance at Hastings on April 30.

Meanwhile, Craig Grylls has been engaged to ride Sir Slick in Brisbane tomorrow.

It will be the warhorse's fourth straight Saturday race at the carnival.

He has performed admirably and has been ridden in each of his three starts by local jockey Glen Colless.