Horses were unaffected by wide racing to record fast times at Hawkesbury

IN virtually every race at Hawkesbury, jockeys steered their mounts at least six horses wide in the home straight while Hawkesbury Gold Cup winner Amovatio scraped the paint on the outside fence.

Swear ridden by Christian Reith won on debut at Hawkesbury

THE Hawkesbury track surface was a paradox at the stand-alone meeting last Saturday.

In virtually every race, jockeys steered their mounts at least six horses wide in the home straight while Hawkesbury Gold Cup winner Amovatio scraped the paint on the outside fence.

The inside section of the straight was a no-go zone except in the Godolphin Crown where Two Blue hugged the rail and bravely tried to lead throughout only for the stalking Nancy to sprint past her late in the race.

Both mares raced through the so-called inferior going and defeated the remainder of the Crown field comfortably.

Despite the extra ground covered in most races as jockeys looked to get wide, the overall times were very fast including Furnace’s effort in the Hawkesbury Rush where he smashed the 1100m course record by more than half a second.

UPGRADE NEEDED FOR STAKES RACE

THE Claret Stakes and Hawkesbury Rush should be elevated to stakes grade.

Swear and Flow were making their debuts and ran the quinella in the Claret Stakes and both colts look to be very promising.

Hawkesbury’s feature two-year-old race, the Claret Stakes, has been part of the stand-alone program every year and invariably produces good horses.

Zoustar is among a classy list of horses to win the Claret Stakes

Zoustar (2013) won the Claret Stakes and then trained on to be a two-time Group 1 winner, while Royal Discretion (2007), Fravashi (2008), Kanzan (2009) and Villa Splendido (2012) performed at stakes level as older horses.

The Hawkesbury Rush is a relatively new race on the stand-alone meeting but Furnaces is a brilliant colt and defeated two very good older sprinters, Inz’n’Out and Kuro. This was a sprint race clearly of stakes quality.

With the huge prizemoney on offer — there was more than $1.16 million in stakes across the nine races — and the new-look Hawkesbury track’s 400m straight run home, the stand-alone meeting will continue to attract better quality horses making a compelling case for the Claret Stakes and Hawkesbury Rush to be upgraded to Listed level.

COSTIN RETURNS FOR TITLE DEFENCE

WINONA Costin resumes riding after injury this week as she attempts to revive her Sydney apprentices premiership defence.

Costin has 16 wins for the season but has fallen five wins behind leader Rory Hutchings. Samantha Clenton (13) and Andrew Adkins (12) are the only other apprentices in the premiership race.

Hutchings struggles to ride under 56kg and he has had his share of suspensions this season but he is clearly in the box-seat to claim the coveted title after his win on Amovatio in the Hawkesbury Gold Cup.

ANOTHER RECORD ON THE CARDS FOR WALLER

Chris Waller is on track to record the most city wins for a trainer

WITH still three months of the season remaining, Chris Waller has already wrapped up his sixth consecutive Sydney trainers premiership — and he now has a very real opportunity to establish a new all-time record for most city wins in a season.

Waller’s Hawkesbury treble with Amovatio, Hipparchus and Mackintosh takes him to 129 wins for the season and if the trainer can maintain his monthly average of city winners, he will challenge his record of 167.5 wins set in 2012-13.

FORM CONTINUES

SYDNEY stayer Maurus and Canberra’s brilliant Fell Swoop continued their good autumn carnival form with strong wins at Doomben.

The David Vandyke-trained Maurus showed he is right on target for the Brisbane Cup when he toyed with moderate opposition over 2200m. while his stablemate Astronomos began his Cup campaign with a very good second over 1600m.

Fell Swoop took a while to reel in the leaders in the Victory Stakes but his class shone through late.

Trainer Matthew Dale has managed Fell Swoop superbly with the gelding winning his ninth race from 14 starts and taking his prizemoney over $1 million.

300 LOOMS FOR WEIR

MELBOURNE Cup-winning trainer Darren Weir could become the first to prepare 300 winners in a season since John Hawkes set a Commonwealth record of 334 wins in 2002-03.

Weir ended last Saturday on 252 winners after wins from a winner at Caulfield (Olivier) and a treble at Morphettville (Rageese, Howard Be Thy Name, Rich River).

Originally published as Horses were unaffected by wide racing to record fast times at Hawkesbury