Archer Park out to strike Gold over the next fortnight
Weather watch for Gold Coast track as Gollan-trained filly is not a certain Pearl starter
Queensland’s Archer Park Racing has four juveniles nominated for Saturday’s Aquis Gold Pearl and Nugget races, the last chance saloon for two-year-olds to make the field for the following week’s $3 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m).
However, the most likely of the Archer Park-owned quartet to run this weekend, the Tony Gollan-trained filly Moulin Miss (Spirit Of Boom), isn’t eligible for the rich Gold Coast race series.
Instead, connections are hoping to start off the filly’s racing career at the glitter strip track with a view of heading to Sydney next month for another sales-restricted race, the $2 million Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m).
The Stuart Kendrick-trained pair Bank Book (Written Tycoon) and King Spirit (Spirit Of Boom) are also certain to bypass this weekend’s races after barrier trial wins at the Gold Coast last month assured the pair of a start in the respective $500,000 The Debut races for fillies and the colts and geldings on January 13.
Defiant Boom (Spirit Of Boom), also a Kendrick-trained colt who was purchased for $160,000 by Archer Park, is also no certainty to to back up in the $150,000 Gold Nugget after his encouraging debut second behind Victorian-trained Magic Millions contender Wolfgang (Exceed And Excel) at Doomben last weekend.
To complicate matters for Archer Park and rival owners and trainers is the deluge of rain that has fallen across South East Queensland in recent days, leaving the redeveloped Gold Coast racecourse turf circuit as a Heavy 10 late yesterday.
Archer Park racing co-principal Chris Wessel conceded the wet weather could put a spanner in the works for Moulin Miss, a $170,000 purchase from the Inglis Melbourne Premier sale by Gollan and agent John Foote out of the Eureka Stud draft.
Moulin Miss spaced her rivals by four and three-quarter lengths in an 840-metre Doomben barrier trial on December 19. The runner-up Spirited (Spirit Of Boom) ran third to Wolfgang and Defiant Boom at the weekend.
“She’s not Magic Millions, she’s an Inglis filly, so we’d like to be going back to Sydney for the Millennium with her,” Wessel told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“If she’s going to have any chance in that, she’d want to be running well on Saturday if she gets conditions to suit.
“That said, I don’t think Tony would want to be starting her on a heavy track, so we’re in the lap of the gods to see how the weather goes towards the end of the week. She did trial really well, so the only holdback for her would be if she drew terribly or the track was still heavy on Saturday.”
Moulin Miss’ half-brother by Arrowfield shuttler Admire Mars (Daiwa Major) will also be offered at the 2024 Premier sale by Eureka Stud.
On the talented Defiant Boom, Wessel reported that his colt was a “50-50 chance” of backing up.
“We’ll just see where here draws and what the acceptances are like and what this weather does,” he said.
“I’d like him to start because it was a good run the other day and there’s good prize-money on offer.”
Wessel added: “The next two Saturdays is the time we want to be getting a winner or two because it’s sale time and there’s a new crop of yearlings about to be purchased.
“That’s when you want your name up in lights. It’d be great to win one of the features and we’ll be trying, put it that way.”
Meanwhile, Gold Coast Turf Club track manager Nevesh Ramdhani said the racecourse had received 100 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 7.30am yesterday but the breezy conditions and sunshine later in the day were helping the track improve.
“It was really wet when I walked it at 6am but when we walked it at 9am with the stewards it was already starting to dry out,” Ramdhani told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We had three to four millimetres through the day but with the breeze that’s blowing now, and the sunshine, the track has improved out of sight.
“It’s got the most incredible cover of grass that I’ve ever seen and it’s got a beautiful base. Even on similarly wet tracks when we’ve allowed gallops the damage has been minimal, so I really have no issues [about racing on it].”
The rail is in the true position for Saturday, but Ramdhani will consider moving the rail out by a metre for the 11-race Magic Millions meeting on January 13.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said the auction house’s complex, adjacent to the Gold Coast Turf Club, had come through the storms unscathed.
Vendors have been arriving over the past two days with a catalogue of 1,468 horses. The sale starts next Tuesday.