Rogerson confident Beauden ready to show best
WELLINGTON: Graeme Rogerson is confident Beauden is ready to show he can beat the best away from Awapuni.
Beauden was favourite yesterday for today’s group 1 Livamol Classic at Hastings after finishing second in the Metric Mile on September 25 while carrying 60.5kg, 7.5kg more than winner House of Cartier.
That effort reinforced just how good he is at Awapuni. From 11 starts at the Palmerston North track he has won eight times and finished second twice, including that massive weightcarrying effort at his last start , and fourth the remaining time.
The victories include the group 2 Awa puni Gold Cup over 2000m last season, when he beat Prise de Fer, one of his rivals today, and Callsign Mav.
However, he has won just four times away from Awapuni, and his record at Hastings is not great — the best he has done in five starts is one second and one third. In last year’s Livamol Classic over 2400m he was 11th of 16.
“To be fair, he wasn’t right when he went to Hawke’s Bay last year, and in a couple of other races there he had big weights. Weightforage certainly helps him,” Rogerson said.
“I couldn’t be happier with him at the moment. Saturday will tell,” Rogerson said.
Rogerson had enough of an opinion of Beauden that he had looked at the Caulfield
Melbourne Cup double but he and owner Joan Egan decided against it due to the difficulties of getting a spot in managed isolation and quarantine coming back from Australia.
However, Rogerson has not given up hope of getting Beauden to Australia this season.
“We’re going to make a final decision after Saturday, but at this stage it looks as though we’ll aim at the Wellington Cup [3200m] and then we may go over in the autumn.”
Beauden will not be the only runner from the stable looking at weightforage spoils over the weekend as his top sprinter Mascarpone heads for the group 3 Sweynesse Stakes over 1215m at Rotorua tomorrow.
Mascarpone was hugely impressive when winning the group 2 Foxbridge Plate over 1200m at Te Rapa on September 4 and put up another great effort in handicap conditions on the same track on October 1, going down by a neck to the highlyregarded Brando.
“He carried 62kg and gave away 8kg to the winner so it was a great effort. I’m very happy with him,” Rogerson said. — NZ Racing Desk