by Michael Guerin
There have been some highs and some lows for two of the glamour girls of the All Stars pacing team this week.
Because last season’s champion filly Princess Tiffany has been sidelined and will miss one of her richest targets of the season, but stablemate Dream About Me’s chances of winning Monday’s Auckland Trotting Cup may have been boosted by a near perfect draw.
Princess Tiffany will miss the $150,000 Sires’ Stakes Championship at Alexandra Park’s huge twilight meeting on Monday as she struggles with what is believed to be a problem in her hocks, although co-trainer Mark Purdon expects she will be back for some of the bigger three-year-old fillies races later in the season.
Still after suffering the first two defeats of her career this month and then missing Monday’s race, her classic season has hardly started how her connections would have wanted.
Dream About Me has been in outstanding form and will now be locked in a battle for Auckland Cup favouritism after drawing the middle of the front line for the great race.
Dream About Me is looking to add Monday’s Cup with the one she won two seasons ago, and with her usually reliable standing start manners she has a slight advantage over stablemate and favouritism rival Turn It Up, who has drawn directly outside her.
Turn It Up is only the veteran of only eight starts and would rank as one of the most amazing winning stories in the proud history of the Cup if he can trump Dream About Me in the $250,000 race which goes at 8.08pm on a programme that starts at 3.15pm.
Another of the day’s hotpots in Ultimate Machete has drawn the potentially awkward ace draw in his $200,000 Sales Series Pace and while he may not have the natural gate speed to hold the lead with a fast beginner drawn directly outside him, the small second line should aid him and he will be many punters multi anchor for the day.
Marcoola will be odds-on on the $100,000 National Trot even after drawing wide on the front line, especially after several of his key rivals galloped at different stages of the Flying Mile at Cambridge on Christmas Eve.
Last season’s National Trot winner Temporale returned to winning form in the Cambridge sprint and with the draws now emerges as the threat to Marcoola, if there is such a thing in open class trotting at the moment.
TRILLIAN TRUST AUCKLAND TROTTING CUP
Monday, 8.08pm, $250,000, 3200m
1: Raptors Flight
2: Lets Elope
3: Star Galleria
4: All U Need Is Faith
5: Dream About Me
6: Turn It Up
7: Sicario
8: Jack’s Legend
9: Triple Eight (one second line)
10: Utmost Delight
11: Mach Shard
12: Ashley Locaz
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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