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Lightly-raced gelding Fira can improve on his 50 per cent winning strike rate when he runs second-up at Hawkesbury today.
The Peter and Paul Snowden-trained five-year-old looks hard to beat in the tab.com.au benchmark 75 handicap over 1600m and as the last race of the day he could be the one to get you over the line in your TopBetta Tournament - Which you can check out here.
Fira is the veteran of just six starts but has won three with one placing, two of his victories coming at the provincial level.
He made good progress last campaign winning two of four runs and stepped up to city racing when resuming at Randwick on New Year’s Day.
Fira was well in the market that day and was far from disgraced under 59.5kg to run a 1.7 length fourth to Chestnut Road.
He was first-up at 1400m there and will be fitter for the step up to a mile.
Blake Shinn was aboard at Randwick and sticks with Fira today, the pair drawn to gain a cushy run from gate two.
The gelding won his only previous attempt at 1600m, is one-from-one second up and won his only start on a soft track so ticks plenty of boxes today.
If there is a danger it looks to come in the form of the Gai Waterhouse-trained Cabeza De Vaca.
The gelding has been making good progress this campaign, improving on a first up Kembla Grange placing for a win over this distance at the same track in early January.
Cabeza De Vaca was beaten 3.8L into ninth when attempting city grade for the first time at Randwick last start but he may not have handled the soft 6 going that day and will be favoured by an improving track today.
The four-year-old has placed in all of his previous five starts and Brenton Avdulla stays aboard.
Stylish Lad enjoys a notable drop in grade today after racing in the city of late.
He has competed in metropolitan Saturday grade at all four runs this time in and was far from disgraced when beaten 1.7L at Canterbury last time.
Stylish Lad is a two-time winner at the mile, is proven on soft going and has a win and two placings from three visits to this track.
Tradtrishould be hitting peak fitness after two runs from a break.
He led them up and fought on well for a 1.5L second at Canterbury over 1550m last start and is proven at the distance (three wins) and on soft footing (two wins).
Happy tournament punting!
