COVERAGE OF ALL THE ACTION FROM GUINEAS DAY
THE Ladbrokes Triple Crown $100,000 bonus is well and truly alive after Paul Shiers won his ninth Hot100 Darwin Guineas aboard Poet’s Landing on Day 1 of the Cup Carnival yesterday at Fannie Bay .
The Lloyd Kennewell-trained three-year-old’s barnstorming two-length win confirmed he will now go to the NT Derby (2000m) in a fortnight where he will be one of the major players in the second leg of the Triple Crown.
The third leg is the Darwin Cup (2000m) on August 5.
Lloyd’s father Gary Kennewell was confident of another bold run in the Derby.
“I couldn’t see anything that finished behind him beating him really, they still have to get 2000m and it’s always a query I guess,” he said.
The stable only have one horse in Darwin for the Carnival and the trip is now paid for but Kennewell dared to dream of bigger spoils.
“If he won the Derby we would have to look at (the Cup),” he said.
Buried away midfield on the fence, Shiers angled away from his awkward position on the home turn and when in the clear he rounded up leader and race favourite Savatoxl and Country Cop with ease. Kennewell praised Shiers. “He’s a great rider, he did a really good job and when he got to the outside it was all over,” he said.
Shiers had the luck in running to win the Guineas, however, flagged he would be hard to beat in the Derby,
“I was lucky enough to get to the corner and extricate him off the fence at the right time and get him into clean air to see the turn of foot he’s got” Shiers said.
The extra journey of the Derby shouldn’t be an issue for the son of Poet’s Voice who has won five of his nine starts.
“He’s won at 1700m, he finished today full of running. With a similar run, smother him away, don’t spend a penny, I really can’t see a problem,” Shiers said.
“He’s only a little bugger; he makes me look big sitting on him but he’s got a big ticker.”
The winner has seen plenty of the countryside in recent months.
“He’s done a few kilometres – we went from Adelaide to Melbourne, Melbourne to Queensland then a week in the paddock,” Kennewell said. “Then it took us four days to get here. He hadn’t done much work prior to his last start win.”
Poet’s Landing was well fancied in betting, starting the $3.30 second elect behind Savatoxl, who faded to fourth after getting what seemed a decentenough run in front.
Savatoxl stablemate Paghman jumped better yesterday and ran home well for second, suggesting he will also push onto the Derby.
Country Cop ($17) proved he was in Derby discussions after battling on well for third.
Sir Garfield never had a winning chance the way the race panned out and he will be much better suited over the 2000m of the Derby.
Attention now turns to the Chief Minister’ s Cup race day on Saturday.