Racing: Sargent strengthens cup campaign

Heza Karma Karmi. Photo / Supplied

There could be a good bet in the $1 million Stella Artois Auckland Cup - which horse stable rider Mark Du Plessis will partner.

Trainer John Sargent wasn't sure whether Du Plessis would ride Passchendaele or Heza Karma Karzi, dashing winner of the Hills Pet Nutrition Cup Prelude at Ellerslie on Saturday.

Sargent has something of a reputation as a top-class spoofer - you can see why.

You'd have to think the safest bet would be that Du Plessis would ride Passchendaele, third in the Darci Brahma Stakes behind Veloce Bella under unfavourable weight-for-age conditions this month.

However, Du Plessis was not ready to declare for either horse on Saturday, which will leave one of the two camps looking for a replacement jockey.

Sargent thought Victorian hoop Craig Williams would be a possible.

"Craig was narrowly beaten in the Auckland Cup for me on Kind Return. With the cup being run midweek on the Wednesday it will be easier to secure an Australian."

There was no re-handicap for the cup for winning Saturday's race.

Heza Karma Karzi is a massive animal and although he finished third on debut as a 2-year-old, he quickly ran out of strength as a young horse and, essentially, lost form.

He has taken a long time to come solid, but has burst into the form he always, potentially, looked capable of.

Sargent says he hasn't weighed Heza Karma Karzi - he almost doesn't want to know how heavy the big chestnut is.

He's not a horse you'd want standing on your toes. Some big horses struggle with perfect balance - Heza Karma Karzi is magnificently proportioned.

"He's a bull, too, but you wouldn't know it, he's so quiet."

Owners Peter Walker, Alistair Sutherland and Tony Timpson, who paid $125,000 for the horse as a yearling at Karaka, were strongly thinking of not running him in the Auckland Cup, believing the race was perhaps a year too soon for the horse.

"I had to give them a stern talking to," said Sargent.

Three months ago, the ownership trio might have been on the money about the cup being a touch premature, but now the horse is right in the zone.

Du Plessis gave Heza Karma Karzi a lovely trip, tracking the speed, and presented him to challenge at the top of the straight.

With one of the main dangers, Six O'Clock News, out of play because of the torrid run he received - three wide for much of the race - there were no late challengers.

Six O'Clock News loomed to the leaders at the top of the home straight, the attack looking a little premature after covering so much extra ground, and fought bravely for third, Everbright just toppling him for second.

The former Hong Kong-trained runner-up turned in a good Auckland Cup trial.

Passchendaele is the hot favourite for the Auckland Cup and it's difficult to make a case for anything that ran in Saturday's $80,000 Taranaki Cup, won by evergreen stayer Bruce Almighty, being a danger to the top of the Ellerslie betting order.