Sydney: Comprehensive preview of every race at Randwick

A COMPREHENSIVE preview of every race for Saturday’s meet at Randwick with Shayne O’Cass

Painte. Picture: Simon Bullard

NOTE 1: RACES are assessed for a Heavy 9. All horses are considered starters unless notified by Thursday at 1PM. (N/R) denotes no rating.

NOTE 2: Heavy 9 at Randwick with the rail out 11m and the potential for quite a few scratchings. Will it be hard up against the inside fence or Palace Revolt style on the grandstand side? On pacer or swoopers? Frankly, no one can tell with any certainty, so any pattern that develops won’t be known for a few races. In short — good luck, we are going to need it!

RACE 1

2. GUARD OF HONOUR (N/R) opened up at $1.60 first-up but somehow got to $2 when he won at WF on Jun. 15. Anyone who saw him trial (twice) going into the race would have thought the $1.60 was on the generous side, but even money? Wow. Anyway, it’s a whole new ball game tomorrow but there is a good race in this $300,000 Magic Millions Yearling. It’s not the ability that’s in question, it's the heavy 9. Granted he failed (6th of 6) on a heavy 9 at Rosehill but that was his debut in the Canonbury and he went out right away so that’s a forgive run. He’s out of a mare by General Nediym and has a fair old resemblance to him, a noted wet tracker and wet track sire. Barrier 1 but gets first use. 1. MORTON’S FORK (N/R) is 2s 1-1-0 on soft. That 2nd was first-up when he took some ground off the highly promising Russian Revolution here on Jun 25 over this same 1200m trip. Good, honest colt drawn to get a lovely run/trail. 5. GOLDEN ORGANIC (N/R) really caught the eye on debut when finishing fast from the back to be beaten a length at C’bury over 1100m on a soft 7. Plenty of names in the pedigree suggests he’ll excel on heavy ground — and he’s a grey if you subscribe to the old ‘greys in the wet’ theory.

RACE 2

THIS coming week marks the fifth anniversary of Jerezana’s Ramornie win, completed in typical Jerezana barnsroming style! I mention that only because her son 4. BADAJOZ (69) goes around here after being one of the best things beaten EVER last start at Wyong. Not much at all went right for Brock Ryan — he’s a really good 3kg claimer — it was bad luck more than pilot error that day but I think we can all agree the horse should have won. Nothing at all against Ryan, but he hands the reigns over to Brenton Avdulla tomorrow. Third-up, won on soft, nice alley — he’ll be in the finish with any luck. 1. ELEMENOHPEE (74) has won all three starts this campaign going from a H’bury maiden to a Rosehill Bm85 via a midweek Bm72 beating Hot Hit. That is some rapid improvement. The horse beat Powerline and Painte in a very deep race last start but he had 53kgs and goes up to 60.5kgs. Sure he’s way down in class but that’s a decent weight on a bog track. 3. NOBLE JOEY (70) is an adept wet-tracker, an on-pacer (leader), honest, well drawn and a last start Randwick winner. Will take some running down, more so should he get a few favours upfront.

RACE 3

5. MORE THAN FABULOUS (68) had only won 1 race from 22 starts prior to his emphatic win at C’bury on Jun. 22. That said, he’s been placed 11 times at a variety of distances and tracks and often it’s been his pattern of getting back and being very tempo and luck reliant that has prevented him from winning up around the 6 or 7 race mark. Regardless of all that — one thing we know is that he is a killer wet tracker and that win last start was just awesome the way he attacked the line. 2. STORM SYSTEM (69) is a Gerald Ryan Snitzel that was going great guns prior to his C’bury failure on Jun. 22. Indeed, go back one run and he was 0.3-lens 3rd to El Novio (scratched to run in a later race) and subsequent city winner Not A Gypsy over this t/d. Major player. The lightly-raced 9. LOOKIN’ AT YOU (57) has his third start tomorrow off the back of two 4ths at WF in 1400m and mile maidens last month. Bred to swim, one just wonders how he’ll go running ten furlongs on a testing track so early into his career.

RACE 4

THE horse I am VERY keen on in the TAB Highway started $101 last start and finished way down the order in a Kembla Bm60. Sounds pretty awful right? Think again, go and watch the race and you’ll see what a big run it was from 5. PERCIVALE (55). How he is $51 in such an open race is beyond me. Tommy Berry on a 50/1 shot! Percivale is a 2000m plus horse no doubt but he’s second-up here — ostensibly he is first-up because he didn’t have much opportunity to gallop at Kembla so methinks he’ll still have some spring in those legs. In terms of ‘class’ bear in mind that last prep Percivale was 3rd to Zarzali (on heavy 8) and came out next start and beat Zatopaz. There’s not may times you’d back a horse at $51 but a Randwick bog with the rail out like this in a Highway in particular — I think we can make an exception. 1. ATTAINMENT (60) is flying right now ‘x2121’ but I prefer Percivale at $51 the win (circa $14 the place) than Attainment who is 2 from 20 at $3.50. Did you see 2. TIPTA TANTIVY (62) win at Kembla last start? OMG — she was unbelievable. She’s gone ‘821’ so is obviously a progressive mare by the mighty wet track racehorse and sire Zariz.

RACE 5

JOE Pride holds the key to this race IMO with his duo 2. PAINTE (82) and 3. SHADOW LORD (82) although I have 1. POWERLINE (83) splitting the pair. Both of Pride’s are very, very good wet trackers and both are holding their form tremendously well. I expect Painte to be much, much closer in the run than his last start and that would place him ahead of both Shadow Lord and Powerline in the run. To paraphrase the Beach Boys, ‘God Only Knows’ how the track will play but 9 times out of 10 it is best to be closer to first than last on heavy tracks and that swings the pendulum to Painte slightly over the two for me anyhow. For the record Pride has a third runner in 10. SLYDINI (67) who is a good wet tracker but he’d really have to lift to beat his stablemates and a handful of the others.

Defrost My Heart. Picture: Mark Evans

RACE 6

MILE and half races on bog tracks where Waller has multiple runners isn’t the kind of scenario that sane punters get involved in but I am pretty keen on 2. DEFROST MY HEART (80) here. She’s one of the Waller trio and has Hugh Bowman to ride. Bowman has an affinity with the Irish-bred daughter of Fastnet Rock having ridden her 6 times for 2 wins and 2 seconds. Defrost My Heart is fourth-up tomorrow (very fit) and is 2s 1w on heavy. She is a WF winner at 2400m with Bowman up and does race handy. Waller scratched 5. EL NOVIO (71) from a winnable 2000m race against his own age to contest this. The son of Casino Prince is racing so well right now, has been all campaign really, all he has to do is run 2400m strongly but that seems assured. 8. LIE DIRECT (64) is the likely leader here. The son of the mighty Zabeel has 51kgs after Deanne Panya’s claim and two things; she is basically besties with the horse and with Jim Cassidy retired, there might not be a better judge of pace in the saddle than Panya. Just by the way too — does anyone remember Anzac Day in 2015? Maybe not — but I bet you’ll all remember what 10. MAJOR MAJOR (61) did. He won the 2400m race on the heavy 8 by 7.5-lens. I can’t remember ever seeing a horse going so well up the rise as Major Major was that day — it was amazing.

RACE 7

6. MCCREERY (81) has a good race in him; he’s stakes class every day of the week and twice on Sunday. If the TAB put up a market for the Villiers today, McCreery would be the one I’d wanna back. The Waller trained 4YO has raced here 3 times for a close debut 2nd at Rosehill (midweeker) then a dramatic win at Gosford after that (he ran about a bit late but Bowman carried him over the line) and then that first-up 6th of 11 at Rosehill on Jun. 4. I thought he closed off okay from the back. He went back to trial on Jun. 28 and ran 6th of 7 but that’s all they wanted from him. Is 3s 2-1-0 on soft, 2s 1-1-0 second-up. 8. ZAYAM (79) is the blowout horse at the lucrative overs of $26. I was watching him through his trials and thought ‘there’s a horse going well’. That accounts for the $26 into $15 first-up at Rosehill on Jun. 18 and even though he clocked in 8th of 10, he was only beaten 2.9-lens and had a few rumps in front of him that made it hard for Jason Collett to really floor the son of Shamardal. Bear in mind that Zayam is 4s 0-0-1 first-up but 3s 2w second-up and is a heavy 8 track winner over this trip. 2 FAROLITOS (87) has some compelling numbers like 7s 2-2-2 at the track, 7s 2-2-2 at the trip and 6s 2-2-1 at the t/d. Handles the soft/heavy, last start winner — Bowman rides, drawn well. Easy to like and hard to beat.

RACE 8

THERE is talk that 10. EXTENSIBLE (70) won’t run tomorrow and will be saved for next week. Fair enough, I can understand why — but just in case, I want to keep her on top in case somehow the suns shines through and Randwick improves enough for the Snowden’s to send her around but at this point it seems unlikely. So with space at a premium, I shall move straight to the second preference and 9. LYCIA (73) from the Godolphin. She is a 3YO filly taking on all comers which is never, ever easy but she has no weight after the 3-off for Andrew Adkins and she’s a filly that is flying and definitely on an upward spiral. Lycia has some Sadler’s Wells blood in her veins and that may account for her 1s 1w on heavy and 3s 1-2-0 on soft. Whatever the reason, at least she’ll get through it. 5. TREE OF JESSE (79) is 3s 2w first-up and 3s 2w on heavy. She has a strike of 1:3 which not every horse does and trainer James Cummings has done enough to convince Hugh Bowman to take the ride this weekend. If they are running on to any degree — she could be the one to zoom home over the top.

RACE 9

OBVIOUSLY we are dealing here with a real puzzle to end the day. One can only assume the track will have taken a hammering with 8 races done and dusted — as if it wasn’t hard enough without all the outside circumstances of a heavy 8 and an 11m rail. With all that taken into account, I am working on a ‘fit horse, on pacer, no weight’ theory and backing 6. MINNESOTA (74) from the Gwenda Markwell camp. This daughter of wet track supremo Snitzel is very honest and has some decent numbers as a result namely 4 wins and 4 placings from 15 starts, 4s 0-1-2 here at HQ and 7s 3-1-1 at the trip. She is 9s 3-2-2 on soft and the 1000m is her trip. 10. ALLEZ CHIVAL (73) ran 5th in the race that Minnesota was 3rd in here over the t/d on Jun. 25. The significant point there is that Allez Chival was first-up and is 2s 2w second-up. She is 3s 2w on heavy and has drawn well in 5 so expect her to take up a very prominent role as per usual. 13. CHEEKY BABE (69) is a bit of an X-Factor mare and can win but boy oh boy, $3.80 Fixed is short.