Waller pushes for Coast Group 1
Cash the key for Hollindale boost
CHAMPION trainer Chris Waller has urged Racing Queensland to inject more prizemoney into the Hollindale Stakes in a bid to try to secure Group 1 status for the Gold Coast weight-for-age feature.
Waller, who won the Hollindale in 2010 (Metal Bender) and 2011 (My Kingdom Of Fife), has five runners in the Group 2 race tomorrow, headed by early favourite Comin’ Through and cult hero Tom Melbourne.
Waller feels the changes in the programming of the Sydney autumn present Racing Queensland with a chance to capitalise.
“It’s probably a race if Queensland continues to boost, they will get it up to Group 1 at some stage, because there’s certainly been no shortage of good horses win it,” Waller said.
“If you put another $150,000 on top you’d have a Group 1 race in no time.
“It’s a race Queensland should be targeting as a follow-on from the Doncaster and the Queen Elizabeth. Even the Queen of the Turf, enticing the milers out to 1800m.”
Waller said the huge boost to the prizemoney of Sydney’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes – it was worth $4 million this year – should be seen as an opportunity rather than a negative for the Queensland carnival.
“The Queen Elizabeth (trainers) are strategically planning to have their horses running at their third or fourth run,” he said.
“That leaves a bit left in the tank, whereas it used to
be a $500,000 race and it was their fifth and sixth runs and they were pretty tired by the time they got to it.”
Waller has a powerful hand in tomorrow’s $358,000 Hollindale and rates Comin’ Through ($3) as the best of his five runners, slightly in front of Tom Melbourne ($5.50).
“Comin’ Through was very good in the Doncaster where he raced three wide and he backed it up with a good run seven days later behind arguably the four best weight-for-age horses in the country in Gailo Chop, Happy Clapper, Humidor and Winx,” he said.
“There’s no better form. I think three weeks between runs, coming back to 1800m is just the perfect race for him.”