3 minute read
We are through the holiday period and onto the run up towards the late summer and autumn carnivals in Melbourne with the Kensington Stakes a terrific feature on Saturday's Flemington card.
The rematch between Fabergino and Prezado looks a cracker with good recent winners Pandemic and Sword Of Mercy thrown in alongside a returning Halvorsen. That will be something to really enjoy but our best bet comes up elsewhere with Hasseltoff fancied to knock of race two on the card.
Hasseltoff has strung together good ratings this preparation, headlined by his Flemington romp over 1700m last time where he reeled off nice closing fractions to post an overall performance that if replicated on Saturday will set the bar nice and high for a fairly ordinary set of rivals.
The possible exception to that is the Chris Waller-trained Irish import Great House, who knocked off a slowly run maiden before getting on the plane, and won't have to be any star to get involved here. He has jumped out okay, but nothing to say that he was working the place down, and the stable are hardly a fire em out of the blocks kinda yard.
Hasseltoff sets a nice standard and prices around 2/1 seem good gambling all things considered.
For an each way play we roll on to the eighth race on the card, a really interesting 2000m handicap where again we are keen to bet against an import with a nice profile.
That is Long Arm, who benefited from a pace meltdown at his Australian debut while our fancy, Coolth, did not benefit from a farcical tempo when he was safely held last time out.
They crawled and he was left with no chance but blinkers go on now, so we have a clue there that the yard are keen to see him brought to life a bit sooner this time, and he gets to 2000m where is ratings over the winter were terrific for a race like this.
Essentially, he has found himself in two ordinary spots this time in and now finds a good spot where he should be able to run his race and that makes him the one most likely on Saturday.
THE MELBOURNE MAIL
Bet Of The Day: Race 2 #4 Hasseltoff @ $3.00
Each Way Play: Race 8 #14 Coolth @ $7.00
