Gator a query runner in Eagle
DISASTROUS BARRIER AND HEAVY TRACK MAKES ...
DAVID Vandyke has been mulling over the wide barrier and predicted rain ahead of Saturday’s Golden Eagle at Rosehill but, more broadly, whether Alligator Blood has taken the next step necessary to win the $7.5 million race.
Alligator Blood is an easing $7 chance with Ladbrokes after drawing gate 15 on Tuesday. He’s also unknown on genuinely wet ground, which seems certain to be the case come Saturday given the Sydney forecast this week.
So it’s very much an unknown equation for Vandyke with his reigning Queensland Horse of the Year.
“I’ve gone into races with him and been confident and he’s ticked all the boxes before the gates opened. That’s not the case now,” the Sunshine Coast trainer said.
“We’re sitting in a big grey area. I would like to think he’s going to run a good race, I would like to think he’s going to win, but I’m not confident, I’m just hoping.
“After the Australian Guineas if I said he will get beat his next three starts, you would have thought something had to be wrong for that to happen.
“He hasn’t put in an exceptional performance, they have been pass marks.
“We really need to see improvement for him to win the race, plus handle the track and needing luck from the barrier.”
Asked if he still has the same faith in Alligator Blood he did at the start of the year, Vandyke said “faith is a broad term” and it’s more a question of entering the unknown as a four-year-old.
“He’s tried hard his last two starts. I’ve seen that,” he said. “The horses he raced against earlier this year, a lot of them have dropped off the radar and he himself had a long arduous career as a three-year-old. So is he back to his best and how good is his best?
“Maybe his best isn’t good enough to win the Golden Eagle. But I think because it’s pretty much a new group of horses he’s racing against, Saturday will tell us a lot about where he’s at this season.”
Vandyke said he “wouldn’t have a clue” whether Alligator Blood will handle a wet
surface, although the fact he’s not overly long-striding, coupled with being an athletic, not bulky, horse, might help.
COVID-restrictions mean Vandyke has had to train Alligator Blood from afar since he arrived in Sydney, which leaves him a little in the dark.
He has called on former assistant trainer, vet Michael
Robinson, to make daily visits, but it’s not the same as being there yourself.
“I hate not being there, not so much for race day, but for the lead-up, because I’ve been very hands on with him,” he said.
“I look at him every day and I will make decisions off the back of what I see. At the moment I’m not seeing anything, except a video, an ETrakka trace and comments from those around him down there.
“An assessment on any horse is a very personal thing and the way I assess him will be slightly different to the way anyone else will assess him.”
I would like to think he’s going to win, but I’m not confident, I’m just hoping DAVID VANDYKE