2024 The Hunter: Trainer Joe Pride to saddle up Coal Crusher as Private Eye heads to Melbourne

Trainer Joe Pride is likely to rely solely on defending champ Coal Crusher in the Group 2 $1 million The Hunter (1300m) at Newcastle on Saturday.

Emily Harrison on Fulfilled and Marine Distler on Barazin check out Horseshoe Beach at Newcastle ahead of this Saturday’s The Hunter race day. Picture: Adam Yip

Trainer Joe Pride is likely to rely solely on defending champ Coal Crusher in the Group 2 $1 million The Hunter (1300m) at Newcastle on Saturday.

Pride has also entered Private Eye but indicated he was more likely to send that horse interstate.

“Coal Crusher will definitely go to The Hunter,’’ Pride said. “It was a disaster what happened last start, they went cutthroat (speed), and he can certainly bounce back.

“Private Eye is more than likely to go to Melbourne for the Group 1 (Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes). He’s looking for 1400m now.’’

Pride’s stablemates are among a bumper 30 entries for the rich Newcastle race.

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Private Eye, winner of two Group 1 races and more than $11.7 million prizemoney, has been allocated 60kg topweight for The Hunter with Coal Crusher next on 59kg.

The Kosciuszko winner Far Too Easy (56.5kg) is early TAB Fixed Odds favourite for The Hunter at $4.50 ahead of Private Eye at $6 with Coal Crusher and Briasa at $8.

The promising Team Hawkes-trained Briasa is equal 24th on order of entry and although a number of horses above him are unlikely starters, it will be touch and go if he makes the final 16-horse field.

The Hunter meeting, which had its launch on Newcastle’s iconic Horseshoe Beach on Monday, has attracted 187 entries across the 10 races with nominations extended for two races.

Emily Harrison on Fulfilled and Marine Distler on Barazin launch The Hunter race day at Horseshoe Beach in Newcastle. Picture: Adam Yip

• Rising star sprinter Briasa earns crack at The Hunter

Spirit Ridge, trained by Annabel Neasham and Rob Archibald, has been allocated topweight of 61kg for the Listed $300,000 The Beauford (2300m).

Neasham and Archibald, who had their first Group 1 winner with Sunshine In Paris in the Champions Sprint at Flemington last Saturday, could have four starters in The Beauford after also entering Naval College (59kg), Star Of India (56kg) and Regal Lion (54kg).

Newcastle’s leading trainer Kris Lees, who has three entries for The Hunter with Rustic Steel (57.5kg), Infancy (54kg) and Spangler (54kg), will be keen to win the feature juvenile race named in his late father’s honour, the $160,000 Max Lees Classic (900m).

Lees has entered the superbly-bred first-starter Gobi Desert, who is by Broadsiding’s sire Too Darn Hot out of Hell It’s Hot, the dam of dual Group 1-winning sprinter In Her Time, and unraced colt Rustemo.

Originally published as 2024 The Hunter: Trainer Joe Pride to saddle up Coal Crusher as Private Eye heads to Melbourne