As the autumn carnivals in Victoria and New South Wales continue to heat up, Caulfield and Randwick held feature racing throughout last Saturday.
In this week’s edition of The Follow Files, we have found three runners that will most likely push onto feature races during the carnival, following strong performances at the start of their preparations.
Caulfield
Rail position: True entire circuit
Race 7: Group 2 Autumn Stakes (1400m) | Time: 1:24.66
- Horse to follow: Evaporate (3rd)
Caulfield Guineas placegetter Evaporate returned for his autumn campaign in the Group 2 Autumn Stakes, when the Ben, Will & JD Hayes-trained gelding was very unlucky to finish in third place. Mark Zahra settled the son of Per Incanto midfield with cover before the home corner; however, when he wanted to get going on the galloper, they had no where to go. Zahra was patient and waited for gaps to appear, but once he got Evaporate into clear air, Angel Capital was already off and gone with the prize.
When to bet: Evaporate has already been locked in to run in the $3.5 million NZB Kiwi (Slot Race) at Ellerslie on March 8. If he travels over to New Zealand well and takes good improvement from his first-up performance, the equal favourite with horse racing bookmakers will prove very hard to beat.
Race 10: Group 3 Peter Le Grand Stakes (1100m) | Time: 1:03.78
- Horse to follow: Shadhavar (3rd)
In what was just her fifth career start, the Tom Dabernig-trained Shadhavar ran home strongly to finish in the placings behind stakes performers Arabian Summer and Tobeornottobe in the Group 3 Peter Le Grand Stakes. The daughter of Pride Of Dubai wasn’t supported with BlondeBet, jumping as a +2000 roughie; however, she proved to be good enough to mix it with some classy fillies. John Allen elected to settle behind the speed in the box seat, and even though they were held up slightly, when the filly switched tracks to the inside, she let down nicely in the final 300m.
When to bet: The Group 3 Zeditave Stakes (1200m) for three-year-olds looks the likely destination for Shadhavar, and with a bit of luck, punters can get an each-way price about her on Blue Diamond Day at Caulfield.
Randwick
Rail position: True entire circuit
Race 5: Benchmark 78 Handicap (1600m) | Time: 1:35.78
- Horse to follow: Point And Shoot (1st)
Point And Shoot is one of the many runners from the Bjorn Baker stable that is in fine form of late, as the three-year-old gelding is rising through the grades quickly in his second racing preparation. After breaking his maiden in December, the son of Blue Point has raced in metropolitan grade in his next four starts, which includes two dominant victories at Randwick over 1400m and 1600m. In his most recent start, Tim Clark rode Point And Shoot patiently at the back of the field before moving to the outside of runners and letting down with a booming turn of foot to record an easy 2.4-length win.
When to bet: Interestingly, Baker has nominated Point And Shoot for the All Star Mile on March 8, and to get into the race, you would expect the gelding would have to compete in a black type contest in the lead-up. Wherever the stable chooses to take him next, Point And Shoot will prove hard to beat.
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