By Michael Guerin
The two-day delay to tonight’s Alexandra Park meeting has only brought about only minor changes to the major races.
Namely: Arafura out of the Northern Oaks Prelude while Got The Chocolates comes back into the Northern Derby Prelude.
The meeting was to have been staged on Thursday night but was postponed because of high winds and constant rain in Auckland, both of which were gone by early Friday.
So the meeting moves to tonight, overlapping with the Addington day fixture, with leading driver Blair Orange driving at Addington instead of Alexandra Park.
Scratchings for Thursday’s meeting were reinstated and that brings Got The Chocolates back into the Derby Prelude, pushing hot favourite Marketplace’s odds back out from $1.14 to a multi-tempting $1.24 on Friday.
But while it will now have the full field originally declared the Oaks Prelude is down to five with the Harness Million quinella-mates Stella Rouge and now Arafura out.
Co-trainer Steve Telfer said Stella Rouge had a slightly off blood picture on Thursday and didn’t need the Prelude outing to be ready for the Oaks next Friday.
But rival trainer Hayden Cullen made the decision to scratch Arafura from barrier 1 as the Prelude comes just six days out from the Group 1.
“Six days is just short enough of a turnaround. If they happened to go hard like a 2:40 for the 2200m this week, I didn’t want to risk it,” says Cullen.
“But she is totally fine and will start next week but we aren’t bringing General Jen up for the Oaks, she can wait for the Sires’ Stakes.”
That reduces the Oaks Prelude to five starters and Beside Me to $1.50 with Without You rated her only real danger by the bookies at $2.50.
Tonight’s meeting has been reduced by one race to a nine-race card starting at 5.38pm, with the first three races on Trackside 2 before coverage continues on Trackside 1.
