All in all, last week didn’t go too badly, the star Cloughmore performer being Maybe Miami, the dominant victor in the Open 1400 event at Riccarton. He’s now the second equal top-rated entrant for the Group 2 Coupland’s Mile, programed for 15 November, the middle day of the Cup Carnival. On current ratings, both Nashville and La Diosa will also comfortably make the field.
Pins filly Hot Fuss fought gamely to be narrowly beaten by the impressive Fastnet Rock colt Age of Fire in the Inglewood Stud Guineas Trial. She’s now gained a 65 rating and should be able to gain a place in the $300,000 Group 1 1000 Guineas field. Although she may lack the finishing speed of some of her rivals, her front-running style will keep her in contention for a long way in the 18 November feature.
On the subject of 18 November, the next three days see a range of candidates for the Group 3 New Zealand Cup further their preparations. The highly regarded Bloodstream (92) runs in the Open 1600 event at Friday’s South Canterbury meeting. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he’s been very cleverly placed to minimise the risk of gaining too many more rating points. Saturday’s Egmont Cup at Hawera features Blathwayt (92), Sampson (91), Wait A Sec (91), Zentangle (89) and Gobstopper (80). The Hawera track is currently rated a Slow 9 and is notorious for being difficult to handle by otherwise highly reliable gallopers; I suspect that the form coming out of this event may not be overly reliable in terms of predicting Riccarton success, but it’s nonetheless going to be interesting to see how these Cup contenders perform.
Finally, we have the Winton meeting on Sunday. Top-weight in the small but select field is our homebred La Nouvelle Vague, with perennial big race contender Sureasyouwereborn also in the field. As there is likely to be a strong pace, both horses should get a good hit-out.
The excitement is building!
