03 May 2018 | Ken Casellas
Astute trainer Mike Reed is a big-race specialist and he is quietly confident that four-year-old Maczaffair will overcome the odds and win the $25,000 Laurie Kennedy Race For Roses at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Reed has set Maczaffair the task of winning first-up after an absence of 13 weeks and other hurdles the Mach Three mare has to leap are succeeding at her first appearance in a standing-start event and overcoming the back mark of 30 metres in the 2503m feature race for mares.
Reed’s confidence was boosted when he took Maczaffair to the Wanneroo trials on Wednesday of last week and the mare, driven by Mark Reed, scored an effortless victory by more than three lengths over her open-class stablemate Shandale after sprinting over the final 400m in 27.8sec.
Maczaffair boasts an outstanding record of 17 wins, seven seconds and two thirds from just 35 starts for earnings of $347,898 and is the class performer in Friday night’s race. Boosting her prospects is her excellent record in middle-distance events over 2536m, a half-head second to Mitch Maguire in the Western Gateway Pace and victory in the WA Oaks as a three-year-old, a wonderful second to Ultimate Machete in the Golden Nugget last December and a powerful, runaway victory in an M0-M1 event at Gloucester Park two starts ago when she covered a lot of extra ground before scoring by more than five lengths.
She goes into this week’s race with bright prospects of extending her winning sequence to five. She will be driven by Shannon Suvaljko, who has an outstanding record in the sulky behind her.
Sharing the back mark of 30m with Maczaffair will be the Ross Olivieri-trained Sheer Rocknroll, who was the sole backmarker off 30m in last year’s Race For Roses in which she was driven to an easy victory by Chris Lewis after going forward in the early stages and racing in the breeze for much of the way.
The only runner off the 20m mark is the Nathan Turvey-trained Chevrons Champion, who bounced back to top form with a convincing all-the-way victory over 2130m last Friday night. Chevrons Champion also started off 20m in last year’s race when she raced in sixth position before sustaining a spirited three-wide burst to finish fourth.
The appearance of brilliant mare Eden Franco will add considerable interest to the race. The Colin Brown-trained five-year-old, who will start off 10m, resumed after a spell almost four weeks ago and impressed with a stylish victory at a 1.56.6 rate over 2130m at Gloucester Park.
That was her eighth win from ten starts in Western Australia and she looks set for bigger and better things. She is an ODS performer (outside draw in stands) and Brown said: “She’s ODS and so she’s got to be a risk.”
However, it is well worth weighing up her prospects by taking into her standing start form in New Zealand where she had four starts in stands for a win, a second and two thirds. At her final appearance in New Zealand in a 2600m stand, she began smoothly from the outside of the front line, dashed to the lead after 150m and gave a bold frontrunning display to win in good style.
Gary Hall jun. said he was looking forward to driving the Kevin Keys-trained Sarah Goody, who will start off the 10m mark. Sarah Goody has resumed after a spell in good fashion with two starts for wins at Gloucester Park and Pinjarra.
“I give her a good chance,” Hall said. “She generally needs to be driven sat-up and I think that she is as good as any of them.”
Justin Prentice, who trained and drove The Parade and Digital Art to victory in the Race For Roses in 2015 and 2016 and then finished second with the pacemaker Maia Maguire 12 months ago, is pinning his hopes with promising, lightly-raced four-year-old Pick My Pocket.
Pick My Pocket, whose past 11 starts have produced five wins, four seconds and two thirds, will start off the front mark and Prentice is likely to attempt an all-the-way win.
The Skye Bond-trained Better B Chevron (10m) will also be strongly fancied. She has raced 26 times for 12 wins and ten placings.
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