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Luckygray will have to set a modern day weight carrying record if he is to notch up consecutive victories in Saturday week's Group 1 Railway Stakes.
Photo by Racing and Sports
W.A. chief handicapper David Hunter has set Luckygray the task of carrying the 58kg topweight - a 5kg rise on his controversial win on protest over He's Remarkable in the Group 1 feature last year.
Tudor Mak remains the only horse to have ever won WA's richest race in consecutive years when he won with 49kg in 1966 and then proved successful again when carrying 60.5kg in 1967.
Since Tudor Mak's weight-carrying record win in 1967, the only other winner to have carried more than 56kg was Sniper's Bullet, who scored with 56.5kg in 2009.
Group 1 Epsom Handicap [1600m] winner Fat Al,Group 1Toorak Handicap [1600m] winner Solzhenitsyn and multiple Group I winner Wall Street sit next in line on 57kg with last Saturday's Group 1 Emirates Stakes [1600m] runner-up, Fawkner, on 56.5kg.
Local galloper Playing God will also carry 57kg as he attempts to add the Railway Stakes to his Group I Kingston Classic [1800m] crown.
Ranger, a luckless sixth with 56kg in last year's event, will carry 53kg this year with the classy son of Testa Rossa unraced since his unplaced finished in the Group 2 Blamey Stakes [1600m] at Flemington earlier this year.
Electing to bypass Saturday's Group 2 Lee-Steere Stakes [1400m], won by Luckygray, Ranger will head now head into the Railway first-up after he scored a comfortable thee-and-a-quarter length win in a 1400m trial at Belmont Park on Monday.
A decision on whether or not three-year-old Luke's Luck will contest the feature mile with 51kg is yet to be made with connections leaning towards a start in Saturday week's WA Guineas [1600m].
