Lees is Clearly OK with barrier
H. Bowman K. Forrester B. Allen (a) O. Bosson T. Berry N. Callow D. Yendall K. McEvoy R. Stewart L. Nolen D. Lane P. Moloney G. Schofield J. Byrne C. Williams C. Brown KRIS Lees yesterday shrugged off a wide draw for Stradbroke favourite Clearly Innocent, who also needs to set a modern weight-carrying record after handicaps were raised at acceptance time yesterday.
Bookmakers took exception to Clearly Innocent coming up with barrier 20, after Joyce Gollogly, a close friend of the Lees family, plucked it out at the official draw for the Group 1 race, which will be run at Doomben on Saturday.
The horse eased from $4 to $4.80 after punters took as short as $3.40 in the past week.
Newcastle trainer Lees said he preferred Clearly Innocent to draw wide than barrier one.
“He was always going to get back in the race and we will just have to get some cover,” Lees said.
The Stradbroke is one race where wide barriers have fared just as well as inside draws.
There have been 14 winners from double-digit draws in the past 27 years, although that has been at Eagle Farm.
The lone year it was run at Doomben, winner Srikandi jumped from the inside gate.
Runner-up Boban jumped from six, while third-placed Generalife was out of barrier 15 – the same one Clearly Innocent will jump from.
Punters may have taken that on board yesterday, as UBET’s Gerard Daffy reported a $4.80-$4.40 move as betting settled after the draw.
But perhaps of more significance than the draw is the record of topweights in the famous sprint.
You have to go right back to to Rough Habit in 1992 to find a horse capable of achieving the feat.
Clearly Innocent was handicapped with 55.5kg but under the rules the minimum topweight has to cart 57kg, meaning weights for all runners went up 1.5kg yesterday.
It puts the Kingsford Smith Cup winner into a zone that few Stradbroke contenders have been able to overcome.
Queensland sprint star Buffering twice had to settle for second after carrying 58kg.
In 2010, Whobegotyou was considered the best horse in the field but labored under his 57kg into 11th place.