24 October 2018 | Ken Casellas
Eleven years ago astute trainer Mike Reed and his son, reinsman Mark Reed, combined to win the Parliamentarians Cup with 12/1 chance Capitol V, who led all the way and beat De Galdearno and Hilton Adonis in the 2503m stand.
That was the 15th and final time the Group 3 feature was a standing-start event, and now the Reeds have high hopes of winning the $30,000 Parliamentarians Cup for the second time, with talented mare Maczaffair, who will start from the No. 2 barrier on the back line in the 2130m mobile event at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Maczaffair is sure to have derived great benefit from her splendid first-up second, when she set the pace and was beaten a head by the Greg and Skye Bond-trained Vampiro in the Mount Eden Sprint over 1730m last Friday night.
Again, her chief rival looms large as a star performer from the powerful Bond camp, five-year-old Mitch Maguire, who will start from the inside of the back line with Ryan Warwick in the sulky.
Mitch Maguire is in top form, with his eight starts in his current campaign producing six wins and two seconds.
Maczaffair, the 2017 WA Oaks winner, is a leading candidate for the $125,000 Mares Classic to be run over 2536m at Gloucester Park on December 7. It is in Maczaffair’s favour that the Parliamentarians Cup will be run over 2130m – her favourite distance. She has raced over 2130m 20 times for eight wins, four seconds, one third and two fourths.
Champion reinsman Chris Lewis won the inaugural Parliamentarians Cup with Hilarion Star in 1993 and he has also won the event with Heros Knight (1998), Our London Pride (1999), Jimmy Nail (2003), Competitive Edge (2006), Ima Spicey Lombo (2010) and Leda McNally (2015). He will handle the Ross Olivieri-trained Im Full of Excuses in Friday night’s Cup.
Im Full of Excuses is a well-performed pacer with 17 wins from 50 starts, but the seven-year-old faces a stern test from the outside of the back line, although he is sure to appreciate a significant drop in class after clashing with Chicago Bull, The Bucket List, Motu Premier and Vampiro in recent weeks.
Im Full of Excuses has been unplaced at his past 13 starts and his most recent success was in March 2017 when he won the Group 3 Harvey Cup at Bunbury, beating Vultan Tin and Our Jimmy Johnstone.
Four-year-old King of Swing, the youngest runner in this year’s Cup, will be strongly fancied from the No. 4 barrier on the front line. He raced in the one-out, two-back position in the Mount Eden Sprint and was hampered for room until the final 250m. He then went three wide on the home turn and battled on out wide to finish sixth, with the final 400m (off the front) being covered in 27.5sec. His previous nine starts produced seven wins and two seconds.
King of Swing will be driven by Stuart McDonald for champion trainer Gary Hall Snr, who has been successful in the Parliamentarians Cup with Tricky Bey in 1994, Our London Pride (1999), Im Themightyquinn (2012) and Ideal Alice (2016).
The Bond stable has an excellent second string in Rock Diamonds, who will be driven by Dylan Egerton-Green from barrier eight. Rock Diamonds, a winner at 16 of his 41 starts, has recovered from the effects of suffering an atrial fibrillation when last behind Chicago Bull in the Navy Cup on September 21. A week before that Rock Diamonds finished a close third behind Runrunjimmydunn and Vampiro.
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