“I think the race is almost perfect for him,” Marsh says.
“With those handicap conditions horses like him and Aegon get in very well and the way he galloped on Wednesday morning, which was his only gallop this week, I thought he was right where he needs to be.”
While he may be a veteran, Skyman finds himself in the right race as it is a United Nations of racing journeymen who might have lost a step along the way.
Skyman started his career in England before an extended stint in Australia, while today’s topweight Midnight Blue is the 2022 Perth Cup winner now trained in Matamata via Victoria.
Aegon has not only won a Karaka Million Three-Year-Old but a NZ 2000 Guineas yet has campaigned extensively in Australia and even taken on Golden Sixty in Hong Kong.
Meaningful Star, who looks the best each way bet today, started his career in Ireland before winning four at Happy Valley in Hong Kong but looks to be loving life in South Auckland.
Add in Not Ideal who started his career here before heading to Hong Kong and boomeranging back and you have a lot of varied storylines and frequent flyer miles for a small field.
At the other end of their careers are the three-year-olds in the listed Armacup Stakes today, which could prove a stepping stone to a Derby, Karaka Million or even NZB Kiwi.
Marsh’s colt Bourbon Proof is still a maiden but has already looked stakes grade after just three starts and Masrsh says a hot pace today would help the son of Justify.
“He is getting better all the time and he can win but it is a good even field.”
There is a good horse or three in this field for sure and today could go some way to establishing which ones are capable of making their connection’s dreams of summer riches come true.
Marsh also has last season’s Telegraph winner Mercurial in today’s big sprint (Race 6) but says being an older horse he may still be another run away from peaking in a race where a lightweight mare like Pour The Wine appeals as an each-way hope.
Today’s meeting also sees the first Ellerslie outing for the TAB Racing Club colours on both In Haste and Dorothea in the juvenile dash.
The club is free for TAB clients to enter and provides micro racing shares in horses without training bills to give punters a collective racing experience and it already has a remarkable 10,000 members.
That could make for a lot of noise at the pointy end of today’s juvenile race judging by the market.
Bosson back
Champion jockey Opie Bosson makes a cameo appearance at Ellerslie today as he prepares to return to riding fulltime.
Bosson will partner Moet Down in Race 4, his only ride on the day after two months out of the race day saddle.
Bosson copped back-to-back suspensions then stood himself down from riding but has been riding at trials and trackwork for the past fortnight.
With his weight coming down, he will take the one ride at 61kg today before resuming more frequent race riding from next week.
New Zealand’s most successful domestic jockey, he sits on 98 career Group 1 wins with the obvious goal of reaching the century of elite-level wins this summer.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
