KEY POINTS:
Stable manager Paul Moroney says he's more concerned about the weather than the form of his star galloper Jokers Wild going into the $300,000 Two Thousand Guineas at Riccarton tomorrow.
Jokers Wild, unbeaten at his last six starts, will be a hot favourite to win the group one race for 3-year-olds.
Moroney said yesterday that form always added pressure.
"Every time you put a win on the board you are one race closer to defeat," Moroney said. "But quite honestly I am more nervous about the rain than the race."
The weather in Christchurch yesterday was fine but early predictions were for possible rain today and a clearance tomorrow.
"All we are hoping for is that the weather holds to a degree where the track won't be overly rain-affected."
Moroney said Jokers Wild would probably not start if the track was slow but "otherwise he'll be there to strut his stuff".
Jokers Wild has been based at Rangiora since last Tuesday when raceday rider Michael Coleman gave him his only serious gallop
"It was a fairly strenuous gallop but he handled it well.
"He ran a bit of time, he was looking for more at the end of it and pulled up very well. We couldn't be more happy."
Jokers Wild had a lighter assignment in training yesterday.
"He did a bit of three-quarter pacework and then came up the straight. All the indicators are that he is at the top of his game."
Jokers Wild has worked on a sand track at Rangiora.
Moroney said it would have been nice to be able to use the course proper at Rangiora but it had been closed since jockey Judy Lawson suffered head injuries in a race fall on October 23.
"From where I sit, having been down here for the last eight days, the fact they are not galloping on the grass is a complete joke. It is in perfect order," Moroney said.
"They have mowed it and that was probably 90 per cent of the problem. It had too much grass on it. It is a perfect galloping surface going to waste."
Moroney said it was fortunate that a gallop on a grass track was not essential for Jokers Wild.
"He was pretty much up to the mark before he came down here. He was only ever going to have the one serious hit-out," he said.
Jokers Wild has won at group two level at his last two starts.
He won the $100,000 Hawkes Bay Guineas (1400m) at Hastings on October 7 and at the same course on October 28 took out the $100,000 Wellington Guineas (1600m).
Moroney said the horse he feared the most tomorrow was Princes Coup, the only filly in the field.
Princess Coup went down by half a neck to Dorabella in the One Thousand Guineas (1600m) for 3-year-old fillies at Riccarton last Saturday and Moroney wondered whether the fillies might be a stronger crop than the colts and geldings of the same age.
"While we are fairly confident we have the match of the male horses, the 3-year-old fillies look as though they might be a better bunch."
- NZPA
