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Victorian trainer David Hayes has two acceptors but only one will start in Friday's $140,000 Wagga Gold Cup.
Photo by Racing and Sports
Hayes kept his options open when he declared Whisper Downs and Auld Burns as Wagga Cup acceptors on Tuesday.
They are also nominated for the same race at Flemington on Saturday and the plan is to split the pair.
Lindsay Park Racing stable manager Jason Timperley believes Whisper Downs is the most likely to make the trip to Wagga from the Euroa stable.
"At this stage I think we are leaning towards Whisper Downs," Timperley said.
"One will go to Flemington and the other will head to Wagga.
“Whisper Downs has been in good form lately, but either one of them would be very competitive.”
Whisper Downs won over 2000m at Caulfield last month and has since run two placings on the same track.
Auld Burns is also in good form with a win and two seconds from his last three starts.
Hayes has declared stable apprentice Chad Schofield as the rider of both his Cup acceptors ahead of a decision on their programs.
Hayes has a small team going to Wagga with the promising Love Of Liberty engaged in a C1 over 1200m on Friday and Storm Shield in Thursday’s Inglis Bonus race for two-year-olds.
The Chris Waller stable is also expected to rely on only one of its two acceptors in the Wagga Cup.
Waller has declared Hugh Bowman as the rider of topweight Illo but has not nominated a jockey for Moriarty.
Other Sydney jockeys with Wagga Cup rides include Glyn Schofield (Court Connection), Nathan Berry (Single), Blake Shinn (Maules Creek), Sam Clipperton (Crafty Irna), Peter Robl (Coliseo) and Tim Clark (Scream Machine).
Coliseo, last year's Wagga Cup winner, is set to back up from running eighth in last Saturday's Sydney Cup over 3200m at Randwick.
There could be a replay of last year's Wagga Cup finish as the 2012 runner-up Devised, trained locally by Tim Donnelly, is aiming to go one better than his photo finish loss to Coliseo last year.
