Kempsey, Bathurst previews: Trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith to end season on high

Group 1-winning trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith is aiming to ice the 2023/24 season with a double at Kempsey on Tuesday via stable recruit Salamancas and late starter Phantom Palace.

Trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith has a great chance of a double at Kempsey on Tuesday. Picture: Jono Searle

Noel Mayfield-Smith is aiming to ice the 2023/24 season with a double at Kempsey on Tuesday via stable recruit Salamancas and late starter Phantom Palace.

The trainer of the immortal Angst has, like most other industry participants in New South Wales, fought a losing battle against the weather gods with washouts on his Northern Rivers region estimated to be in mid-twenties.

“We sort of set a goal of around the 20s mark in terms of winners and I think we got to 16 or so,’’ Mayfield-Smith said.

“A lot of that time, it was wet also at the start of the season I had a lot of young horses and very few runners so it was a good season in that respect.’’

Mayfield-Smith will be done and dusted in quick time at Kempsey with his two runners engaged in the first and second races on the card.

The L-Bo Butchery Maiden Plate (1450m) marks the New South Wales debut for the New Zealand-bred, Queensland-raced Salamancas.

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“Obviously his form is over further but I still expect a forward showing,’’ Mayfield-Smith said.

“I haven’t done a massive amount with him on the track but I have liked what I have seen and he should be competitive

“In the areas that he was running in, you would suggest that the form is superior to Kempsey on a Tuesday.

“There was a race at Doomben where he figured in the stewards’ report quite extensively where he couldn’t get a run down the straight.

“If he lives up to those sort of runs, he has got a future in this area.’’

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Salamancas was secured online at the Inglis Digital Sale in June this year for $22,500.

Foaled in 2020, Salamancas is a son of the dual Doncaster winner Sacred Falls and boasts Reisling Slipper Trial winner Press The Button as his grand-dam.

Mayfield-Smith’s last runner in the 2023/24 racing year is Queensland-bred mare Phantom Palace who has her first start in Tuesday’s The Bowlo Kempsey Country Boosted Maiden Handicap (1000m).

“She has got ability but she is not the real thing quite yet, she still does a few things wrong,’’ the trainer said.

“She had real trouble grasping, jumping out of the gates and running. She would spring out and then was sort of like ‘oh that’s it is it’ and the then that would be it.’’

Phantom Palace exhibited enormous improvement from her first to her second trial.

The daughter of Sidestep was last of nine, beaten ten lengths, in her June 22 trial at Murwillumbah.

Fast forward to July 13 and the rising five-year-old mare was runner-up in a Taree heat.

“She got tired the last bit but my instructions were to not knock her around so it was a very good trial,’’ Mayfield-Smith said.

“The form has come out of it pretty well. The horse that won the trial won by five lengths at Taree on Tuesday.’’

Phantom Palace is owned by John Cannon, who has had plenty of horses with Mayfield-Smith over a long period, none better than Stradbroke Handicap and George Ryder winner, Landsighting.

“If you knew his history, you would know he was an incredibly good horse,’’ Mayfield-Smith said.

“He was never going to race at one stage.

“He was 26 when he died just before we came up here (to Coffs Harbour) and they buried him in the infield at Hawkesbury right next to the trainer’s hut.’’

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Well-bred types can secure nice collect for Smith at Bathurst

Orange trainer Alison Smith aims to win the last two races on the Central West 2023/23 calendar with a pair which cost $760,000 combined as yearlings that she later picked up for $11,000.

First out of the blocks at Bathurst on Tuesday is the Arrowfield-bred One More Thing in the Macquarie Medi Spa Class 1 Handicap (1400m). A $460,000 yearling, his price-tag is easily understood when you consider he is a son of Snitzel out of a Street Cry granddaughter of the celebrated broodmare Easy Date (aka, the mother of Snippets).

“To be honest, he has got a lot of ability but I don’t know if his brain is going to let him down or not,’’ Smith said.

“Just at home and the things he does on the track, you know there is a horse there.

“I wasn’t displeased with his run the other day. He had to give the winner a lot of weight.

“The 1400m is my query. It is not that I don’t feel he can’t run it, I am just not sure whether, fitness-wise, he can run out a strong 1400m on a Heavy 9 at this stage.

‘’He was a $460,000 and we bought him for three (thousand),’’ Smith said.

“There was a not a thing wrong with him. We were told he was a bolter. He doesn’t bolt.

“His worst attribute on the track is you will be cantering around and he keeps kicking up.

“If he didn’t do that, he would be the best ride.’’

Smith should know – she was a jockey herself. In fact, she rode in a Picnic Cup race at Wellington on October 5 in 1996 won by Slatts who will go down in history as Hugh Bowman’s first winner.

Smith’s last runner of the season is That’s Better, a $300,000 yearling whom she secured online in February last year for $8,000. The rising eight-year-old will contest the JB Civil Concreting Benchmark 66 (1100m).

At the time that the son of Exceed And Excel changed hands, his earnings were $49,690.

Going into today, they have leapt to $104,340.

“His fitness just gave out the other day at Dubbo,’’ Smith said.

“I didn’t want him outside the leader that day. I am sure the horse goes better when he is just sat back off them a bit but he pulled his way there, Will (Stanley) couldn’t hold him any slower.

“It might have been that he was a bit fresh.’’

That’s Better has finished on the podium at 13 of his 30 starts, once at Bathurst and another at Dubbo when runner-up to Kosciuszko contender Compelling Truth.

Originally published as Kempsey, Bathurst previews: Trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith to end season on high