It’s a rare day indeed now when Adelaide’s Morphettville racecourse gets the chance to take centre stage, but that’s certainly the case on Saturday when the racecourse – the only metropolitan venue left in the state – stages its biggest meeting of the season.
SA only has four group 1 races every year, and all four are contested over the next three weeks with two of them, the Robert Sangster Stakes for fillies and mares and the Australasian Oaks, staged this weekend.
Both are worth a total purse of $1 million, with prizemoney paid down to 10th position: it’s not quite a case of every child wins a prize, but not far off it.
As might be expected, the big money and the strong support card (all but two of the nine races on the programme are group events) has attracted some of racing’s biggest names with trainers from NSW and Victoria and leading riders from both those states making the trip south.
All of which adds a degree of difficulty for the punter – and makes life tough for the locals. In the Sangster the only local trainer with a runner is Phillip Stokes, with the outsiders Climbing Star and Stretan Angel, but he is based more in Victoria than at Morphetville these days.
In the Oaks the situation is even grimmer for the home team, with the only SA trained contenders the emergencies, Seeking Stardom and Shut That D’Or.
Adelaide used to be one of the strongest breeding grounds for the nation’s leading horsemen. Trainers like Bart Cummings, CS Hayes and John Hawkes were just some of the modern masters who learned their craft not just at Morphetville but at courses like Cheltenham (sold off some 15 years ago for housing) and Victoria Park, nestled in bucolic parklands close to the CBD.
The heritage listed grandstand at Victoria Park still stands but the racecourse is long gone with the area now given over to the once a year V8 Supercar extravaganza which the city hosts on the tarmac track around the parklands which used to be home to Australia’s Formula One Grand Prix.
Back then horsepower of both kinds could co-exist: alas today that no longer seems possible and the Superpowers, lured back to Adelaide by the Labor State Government, are by far the preferred tenant given the tourism and economic boost they bring to the city.
Still, that’s all in the rear view mirror, and when the gates crash open for the Sangster and the Oaks all eyes will be on what happens in the immediate future.
James McDonald is chasing Malcolm Johnston’s record of 16 group 1 wins in a season and the Sydney based champion Kiwi rider will be hoping to narrow that gap to one by Saturday night after he has partnered Concello and Roots in the Oaks and the Sangster respectively.
Chances are – if the oddsmakers are on the money – that he will probably be disappointed. Roots was rated only a $15 chance on the Victorian TAB Fixed odds market yesterday although Concello was being kept safe in the market at $7.50 behind the Oaks joint favourites Wings of Song, Vibrant Sun and Coco Sun (all $6) and the NZ raider Pulchritudinous ($7).
The latter is the highest rated filly in the field and is having her first race start for new trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, to whom she moved after winning the NZ Oaks for previous handler Chad Ormsby.
In that 2400 metre contest on soft ground she beat home Positivity and Qali Al Farrasha, both of whom reoppose in Adelaide.
She came from off the pace to win that day but if Team Waterhouse opts to use their customary forcing tactics on her first start for them in a bid to exploit her proven stamina then there are few better riding front runners than her partner here, Tim Clark.
McDonald will be hoping that Concello, a running on third in the group 3 Adrian Knox Stakes at Randwick, will show sufficient improvement to be in the mix. That was on heavy ground – what else, it would seem, during the Sydney carnival – but she did win on a good surface at Hawkesbury the time before that.
Roots chances don’t, on paper, appear blindingly obvious in the 1200 metre Robert Sangster given that she has won up to 1600 metres. McDonald will be riding her in a race for the first time in almost a year, since the pair finished fifth behind Comrade Rosa during last winter’s Brisbane carnival.
The Sangster is the moment of truth for the boom three year old filly Estriella, a short enough priced favourite for her first foray into group 1 company.
The Ciaron Maher trained daughter of I Am Invincible has won four of her seven starts, including the last three on the spin, the most recent a listed race at Flemington in late March.
However this is the toughest opposition she has faced but in her favour is the fact that Maher has won the last two runnings of this race with Ruthless Dame and Snapdancer, so if anyone knows what is required to take the prize it is Victoria’s champion trainer.
*Michael Lynch is a former senior racing writer with the Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
