Racing: Wall Street faces Keep The Peace

Wall Street should be well suited by the 1600m tomorrow. Photo / Simon Baker

There might be a slight improvement, but Jeff Lynds doesn't volunteer too much to the media about the chances of his horses in major races.

He admits he runs a punting stable.

Well, Wall Street is at $2.20 for tomorrow's Windsor Park Plate so transparency doesn't need to be avoided.

But Lynds says he has little idea how the hot favourite will fare if the Hastings track, yesterday rated slow (8), gets to bordering on heavy, given an unfavourable weather forecast for Hastings. "We've never really run him on it, so I don't know."

Wall Street's form on slow tracks is excellent, if not at the same level he tackles tomorrow.

On his first start in the slow he was desperately unlucky in finishing a close second at Foxton in R70 grade in June last year.

He has won both his other two starts. The first was a 1600m at Hawkes Bay in July last year which he won by 3.5 lengths in 1.41.68 and the second was in October when he beat Samurai and The Twist by 4.25 lengths over 1400m in 1.27.01.

Like Shaune Ritchie with Keep The Peace, Jeff Lynds is not counting on significant improvement in fitness from Wall Street's terrific Mudgway run.

"We were confident going into the Mudgway and we had him pretty close to the mark.

"He'd worked well before that race and he's worked well since. He took no harm from the Mudgway."

For real odds you could do worse than Time Keeper. He's shown he can lead and win - never more graphically than in the Easter at Ellerslie - and he will be fitter for his first-up Ellerslie run, where he led in difficult conditions and ended up less than one length from winner Ginga Dude.

Eileen Dubh made up plenty of ground in the Mudgway and is another who will appreciate the extra distance tomorrow, particularly if she jumps with the field.


Will it be a Mudgway Stakes carbon copy for Keep The Peace?

Shaune Ritchie wishes he could turn the $200,000 Windsor Park Plate gameplan on its head.

Everyone is assuming tomorrow's group one at Hastings will be a carbon copy of the Mudgway Stakes, where Ritchie's mare Keep The Peace got clear in the home straight and had to hold off the faster-finishing Wall Street.

Ritchie says he would like to turn that around.

"I wish I'd drawn outside Wall Street and come off his back in the closing stages because I believe my mare is better closing on them, rather than them closing on her."

That is not going to be possible with Keep The Peace again drawing barrier No 1.

The 1600m barrier at Hastings is almost certainly New Zealand's worst.

Unless they are absolute back runners, horses that draw No 1 have to move forward in the first 100m to avoid being spat back along the rail and left with no options.

"It's the one start in New Zealand where no matter what you draw it's almost always not a good barrier," says Ritchie.

In the 1400m Mudgway, Keep The Peace was able to clear the barriers comfortably within herself to land in the trail behind the leader, meaning she was able to travel the first 700m completely relaxed.

There is no guarantee the same type of barrier clearance will put her in the trail from the 1600m start. There is a very short run to the first bend and several horses, one of them certain to be Time Keeper, will cross quickly from mid-field or wider to avoid being wide for the first 600m.

"I don't really want to see her kicked up early to be there on the pace from a Caulfield Cup perspective alone," said Ritchie. "It's not what you want to see those types of horses doing.

"But I'm reluctant to tell James [McDonald] anything at all really.

"He knew the fence was off in the Mudgway and got off at exactly the right time.

"He's probably going to have to work this out for himself again."

Ritchie is not devastated at the possibility of a heavy track.

"I believe my mare acts best on dead surfaces, yet she won the Oaks on a firm track so she's got speed.

"It's not so much that she'll manage a heavy track, if it gets to that, simply that it eliminates three-quarters of the others."