Waller pair in the mix
CHRIS Waller knows Kolding or Humidor need to show career-best form for either to win the $5 million Cox Plate at The Valley on Saturday.
The Hall of Fame trainer admitted this is a “very open race” with Kolding ($14) and Humidor ($21) each-way chances in the 2040m event.
Waller said both horses had been working well and he has been particularly pleased with Kolding’s gallops on the track in recent days.
“I am satisfied with Kolding knowing that he won at 2000m last start,’’ Waller said.
“He won a weight-for-age Group 1 race two starts ago indicating he is back to his best form.
“The comments from Hugh Bowman on Saturday and again on Tuesday following his track gallops were that he feels better this spring than he did in the autumn.
“Kolding is better with the bends at Moonee Valley compared to Caulfield but obviously we need to see this under race pressure when racing left-handed.
“The barrier isn’t perfect but James McDonald who takes the ride on Saturday will have done the form.’’
Humidor pushed Winx to less than a length in the 2017 Cox Plate then ran third to the great mare in 2018.
He then lost form and his career was at the crossroads until transferred to the Waller stable at the start of spring.
Humidor has since turned back the clock, winning the Feehan Stakes then splitting Russian Camelot and Arcadia Queen in the Underwood Stakes before finishing third to that duo in the Caulfield Stakes won by Arcadia Queen.
Form guru Gary Crispe said his exclusive Timeform ratings predict Arcadia Queen and Russian Camelot are the horses to beat in the Cox Plate.
Arcadia Queen first came to prominence as a three-year-old at the 2018 Perth summer carnival when she ran to a Timeform rating of 121 to beat the older horses in the Group 1 Kingston Town Stakes. But a decision to keep the mare to sprints aiming her at The Everest and Golden Eagle last spring meant she never reached her Kingston Town Stakes peak.
“But this spring she has been set for the race that she looks made for the Cox Plate,’’ Crispe said.