Matt Dunn eyes Queensland summer carnival with former Hong Kong galloper Midori Beauty
An ex-Hong Kong horse steps out on the Gold Coast on Saturday for Matt Dunn and could potentially be a weapon during the Queensland summer carnival.
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Matt Dunn strongly suspects ex-Hong Kong horse Midori Beauty has the explosive talent to be a Queensland summer or even winter carnival contender.
Midori Beauty had 13 starts in Hong Kong without winning, leading star jockey Zac Purton to say he kept being “sucked in” by the galloper who had trouble winning.
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But it only took Murwillumbah trainer Dunn one start to get a win out of Midori Beauty when the six-year-old gelding flew home from last to score an eye-catching win at Doomben over 1050m last month.
Midori Beauty now steps out to 1200m when taking on rivals in the Class 3 Plate at the first metropolitan meeting back at the Gold Coast grass track on Saturday.
Midori Beauty is a $6 chance and Dunn hopes there is no on-pace bias on Saturday so Midori Beauty can unleash his trademark booming finish.
Even though Midori Beauty currently only has a rating of 70, Dunn feels sure that with continued improvement he is up to having a crack at the Queensland summer carnival.
“He’s got the turn of foot to be a carnival horse,” Dunn said.
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“He’s got the acceleration and he works with all of my better horses already.
“He’s already in Saturday grade and he’s only got to find a bit more to be competitive in carnivals.
“I think he will just keep improving as, for his age, he is certainly not overraced.
“He could probably line up pretty well for summer carnival, I could give him a couple of runs now and then give him a freshen and see if he could line up in some of those summer races.
“His asset his ability to quicken, so I think if we ever tried to ride him closer that could take it away from him a bit.”
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Originally a $190,000 buy from the 2020 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale, Midori Beauty won his first two races in NSW for Bjorn Baker before being transferred to Hong Kong.
He was three times a runner-up in Hong Kong but never won there.
“When he first came into work for me, he wanted to overdo everything and he wanted everything to be a million miles an hour,” Dunn said.
“Some horses can get that trait in Hong Kong.
“But once we got on top of that and taught him to relax properly, he was fine, and he is pretty straightforward now.
“We just had to let him chill out.
“He went from being a little bit of a trouble to falling into line pretty quickly.”
Originally published as Matt Dunn eyes Queensland summer carnival with former Hong Kong galloper Midori Beauty
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