Gold Standard ready and primed

BETTING WORLD makes the lightly raced Gold Standard the biggest danger to odds-on shot Legal Eagle in Saturday’s L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate and Glen Kotzen reckons he now has the four-year-old primed to the hour.

Mind you, Sean Tarry said after the Green Point that he had deliberately left something to work on so Gold Standard needs to have come on quite a bit if he is to thwart that third consecutive win for a horse who has never been beaten over the distance.

But Kotzen points out: “On that Green Point running my horse has only got two and a half lengths to make up, this is his third run after an eightmonth break and we reckon we have him spot on.

“He needed that last run but he wouldn’t have blown a candle out after his gallop last Wednesday and he is now cherry-ripe.

“I know we’ve got draw 11 to contend with but the horse is moving really well and his jockey is riding out of his skin. It looks like there will be a pace on and my horse will be doing his best work at the finish.”

Robinson

Gold Standard is 6-1 second favourite but Mike Robinson has been scratching his head over why the bookies have Goodtime Gal as big as 14-1 for the Cartier Paddock Stakes.

The mare was only beaten threequarters of a length in last year’s Majorca and seldom finishes out of the frame.

“Maybe it’s because of the draw,” her trainer muses.

“But I know she is going to finish right there.”

Could it also be because she ran one of her few disappointing races in last year’s Paddock Stakes? “I remember that something happened down the straight and she lost her way a little bit,” answers Robinson who reckons it was as much immaturity as anything else.

“I feel she wasn’t then strong enough to handle a feature (she won the Victress) and then the Paddock Stakes.

“She is small but she is a lot stronger now and there is more of her. I honestly believe she is going to handle things a lot better.”

And the 11 draw? “I have told MJ to ride her confidently. She is very fit so he will be able to bounce her out and place her. Then he can give her a breather round the turn and she will be running on up the straight. She is almost always there or thereabouts.

“You can rely on her.”