Chevauchee returns with a mission
CHEVAUCHEE makes her long-awaited reappearance in the Racing.It’s A Rush Conditions Plate at Kenilworth tomorrow.
This Australian-bred is held in such high regard that she has started hot favourite on all her three starts – and in the second of them she was actually odds-on to beat Bela-Bela. She opened 5-2 equal favourite with World Sports Betting yesterday but this is her first run since Ridgemont split with Joey Ramsden nearly five months ago.
Brett Crawford has brought her along patiently but the 1 000m could be a big problem because she is bred to need at least twice that far. “We were looking for a 1 200m but there wasn’t a suitable race available,” said Ridgemont manager Craig Carey yesterday.
“We are very excited about her and, although we couldn’t gallop her because there was no grass, she has been going very nicely and I expect her to run well.”
The best horse at the weights is 8-1 shot Fear Not who has 3kg in hand (worth just over two lengths at this trip) on official ratings but she also needs further and this is her first run since her throat operation.
“She has shown quite a lot of natural speed and she has responded well since the op,” said Adam Marcus. “This is a come-on run for her and she will be coming from off the pace. Hopefully she will run a cracker.”
The two with no distance or fitness problems that stand out the most are Hoist The Mast (5-2) and Varumba who is a big price at 10-1. Both have a bit to find at the weights but their stables are in form and the Andre Nel runner possibly has more scope for improvement.
Five of the other seven races are maidens but winner-find- ing will not be easy because there are no stand-outs. Indeed A New Dawn and William Longsword both went into punters’ notebooks after potential-packed debuts and it is almost impossible to choose between them in the first. MJ Byleveld’s mount gets the nod at 22-10 as the money came for him first time but Ramsden thinks a lot of his colt who opened favourite at 12-10.
Moonsaballoon (33-10) looks marginally best in race two and it may be worth taking a chance with the Vaughan Marshall-trained Hernando’s Promise at the same price 35 minutes later.
He should be receiving 5.5kg more according to the weightfor-age scale and this means he needs to be five lengths better than the three-year-olds. But he could easily be because they have not been good enough to win even after a further 12 months.
Crawford’s decision to fit Baqueira with blinkers could prove a winner in race four where fellow 5-2 joint favourite Flying Monarch looks the danger despite the presence of two Snaith two-year-olds.