An awkward draw at a recent Flemington meeting has caused a rethink to the program of recent longshot winner Romancer (NZ) (Redwood).
Instead of being aimed at Saturday’s VRC/CRV Winter Championship Final (1600m), Grahame Begg and connections elected to concentrate on the Listed All Victorian Sprint Series Final (1200m).
Romancer won a heat of the Sprint Series on May 22, taking out the Listed Straight Six (1200m) at Flemington at $101.
After that success, Begg had Romancer engaged to run again at Flemington on June 19 in a heat of the Winter Championship.
“When he drew badly at the 1400 (metres) I thought ‘where’s he going to get to in the run’,” Begg said.
“It was on one of those gluey, sticky tracks which is not to his advantage, so I thought if he doesn’t qualify to run in the mile race, through a bad gate and not his preferred ground, what do we do.
“At least this way he was qualified for the sprint, we know the horse is going particularly well, and we were able to give him another jump-out in-between.”
Begg said Romancer had a jump-out at Cranbourne last week and had retained his form and fitness.
The trainer also had in the back of mind that the 1200m at Flemington can be a tough grind and a horse that can run a strong 1400m is often advantaged.
Begg said the secret for Romancer was to find some cover early in the race adding that apprentice Lachlan Neindorf followed instructions perfectly when successful last time out.
For that reason, Begg saw no reason to replace the apprentice on Saturday.
“It’s hard to take them off when they’ve won a Listed race,” Begg said.
“I know it’s a non-claiming race for the apprentices, but he didn’t do anything wrong on him, so there’s no reason to take him off.”
