Dunn keen on Zamex Hat- trick is in play

T OMORROW’ S S u n s h i n e Coast Guineas winner will have a lofty reputation to live up to in order to cap a hat- trick of sorts for the Group 3 feature, and Matt Dunn hopes it’s his “dumb” gelding, Zamex.

The race’s inaugural running in 2007 was won by subsequent Melbourne Group 3 winner Maslins Beach and the race has risen to Group 3 level in the past three years.

Obviously, Winx will always be the flag- bearer for the race with her blistering 2015 win, but last year’s winner, Tivaci, also went on to bigger things, winning the Group 1 All Aged Stakes at Randwick before his retirement in April.

Whether anything in tomorrow’s field can reach Group 1 heights remains to be seen, but there’s certainly some highly promising types.

Zamex lit up an otherwise unspectacular Rosehill meeting earlier in the month where he came from a seemingly impossible position to win his second Highway Handicap on end.

His growing fan base can get $ 7 about him tomorrow.

Dunn has no doubt the son of Cheval De Troy is up to win- ning a good race, but knows he needs to keep improving.

“You have to keep it in perspective, he’s only beating Class 3 country horses, but the way he’s doing it is impressive and his times are stacking up against other races on the day down there,” Dunn said.

“He’s big and ugly and dumb, but he’s getting it. It took me forever to teach him how to jump.”

The spectacular nature of the last- start win is the very thing Dunn fears is holding him back at the moment.

“He’s still got that little thing in his head where he doesn’t want to go early,” he said.

“He can’t be giving better horses headstarts like that.”

Still, there’s nothing like a horse that can produce a Super Impose or Chautauqua- type finish and visually Zamex did the impossible last time. “He was shot,” Dunn said. “I watched the race at Ipswich with Corey Brown and he looked at me and said ‘ is he going to go?’ He sort of walked away, then came back and said ‘ how did it win?’

“Before he went to Sydney, he gave Niccanova a huge start and ran him to two lengths, so the writing was on the wall.”