Officials to make morning call on Brisbane races

A RACE-MORNING track inspection at Doomben will determine whether classy three-year-old Snitz gets the chance to run in his lead-up to the NSW Country Championship heat.

Doomben was rated heavy yesterday afternoon with more rain forecast.

Murwillumbah trainer Matt Dunn has elected to keep Snitz with his own age group in what is scheduled to be his final start before he tackles the rich Country Championship series in NSW.

Dunn entered Snitz for today’s Three-Year-Old Handicap (1350m) and the Open Handicap over the same distances but decided to only accept for the restricted race.

Dunn has a large number of horses eligible for the Country Championship with Snitz his leading contender.

“The final is a $500,000 race and even the heats are worth $150,000 so why wouldn’t we target them,” Dunn said.

“He can run Saturday and tackle a heat at Grafton two weeks later. Hopefully he will qualify and we can head to Sydney for the final.”

Snitz has won four of his eight starts including a 1200m handicap at Doomben last Saturday week carrying 59.5kg.

“He sat three-deep all the way but was too good for a handy field of three-yearolds,” Dunn said.

“The impressive thing is that he gave all the field four or five kilos.”

Stewards and Doomben course manager Jim Roberts walked the track for 45 minutes from 3pm yesterday and deemed it raceable at that stage.