Racing: Balmuse to star at huge Riccarton meet

Balmuse will run in the Gold Cup on Saturday. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today

Canterbury Jockey Club CEO Tim Mills is hoping Balmuse will add an even further dimension to a massive day at Riccarton on Saturday.

The CJC will operate for the first time its fifth PQ race meeting for the year and on Saturday the club landed the news that it will operate a $750,000 Pick6 on the day.

Balmuse came back from a spell with a gallant win under 60.5kg in yesterday's $12,000 Marlborough Cup and Mills dearly wants the hugely talented galloper in the $80,000 Canterbury Gold Cup at Riccarton on Saturday.

Backing up within six days after a break from racing seems like a big ask, but Mills said he'd been told the horse would be there.

"I spoke to Kevin [Myers] a week or two back and he said he'd definitely have Balmuse at Riccarton."

We'll see.

The big Pick6 came about when outsider after outsider rolled in during the $350,000 Pick6 at Te Rapa on Saturday.

The host racing club does not get a percentage slice of the Pick6 dollar and when massive Pick6 pools first appeared, racing administrators felt their presence at their own meetings meant a downturn on normal betting.

It was felt the lure of a giant pool took dollars from the clubs other forms of exotic betting, but that thinking has largely been turned around.

"I think it works as a positive for the host club and a negative for clubs racing on the same day," said Mills.

"The CJC has been on the receiving end of a couple of big Pick6 pools at Te Rapa and we've come out of those badly.

"I think what happens is that punters do a really in-depth study of the Pick6 races and invest in other forms of betting on those races apart from the Pick6.

"Also when punters drop out early in the Pick6 they feel that because they've done the form study they may as well make use of it."

Mills expects a very strong field that will be user friendly for punters unfamiliar with South Island form.

"We've had a few good meetings at Riccarton lately and the punters have had a good look at some of the horses that'll be in the Pick6 on Saturday.

"And we've got jockeys like Hayden Tinsley coming to ride."

Canterbury's prominent trainers Peter and Dawn Williams will have 15 members of their powerful stable accepting for the meeting.

"We've got the TABs bookmakers on-course on Saturday and we're gearing up for a really big day," said Mills.

* Bashful's owners are standing tall after winning the $60,000 Windsor Park Breeders Stakes on Saturday.

Taller than the Australians who did not go ahead with the purchase of Bashful last week when they discovered the filly was just under the required 15.3 hands high.

"Half an inch, that's all," said trainer Lance O'Sullivan as he watched Catherine Treymane bring Bashful back in the rain on Saturday.

Height on the wither, where horses are measured is only one dimension of the animal and Bashful certainly does not look small in overall inspection. There is certainly nothing wrong with the size of her heart.

Nor the size of Lynley Autridge's. The wife of trainer Stephen Autridge bought Chartreuse on impulse for $3500 at the Karaka yearling sales simply because she liked the filly walking in the back parade ring.

The syndicate she formed to race the juvenile picked up the $30,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Stakes and now have a valuable filly on their hands.