\u201cJason wants to keep him going rather than easing up on him, being an older horse, and of course the other Aussies not being here helps,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Grant Dixon has confirmed Leap To Fame is on his way home and being set for the Inter Dominions in Brisbane while Captains Knock and Kingman both returned to Sydney for a spell, on the same plane as The Janitor and Gus.<\/p>\n
Luke McCarthy said Kingman will bypass the Inters, as will stablemate Don Hugo and, in crucial news for New Zealand futures punters, last Friday night\u2019s Cambridge winner Ripples is also already back in Sydney.<\/p>\n
McCarthy confirmed she has come back here for the heats and final of the New South Wales Oaks \u201cand then if we want, we can go back to Alexandra Park for the Sires\u2019 Stakes Final on May 8\u201d.<\/p>\n
That means Ripples will definitely miss the Pascoes Northern Oaks on May 1, for which she is the $3.50 favourite, as it is the same weekend as the New South Wales Oaks.<\/p>\n
Of the New Zealand big pacing names, the confirmed withdrawal from the three Group 1 pacing races is Merlin, as he heads to the spelling paddock.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly that wasn\u2019t his best work last Friday so we think the best thing to do is give him a spell,\u201d co-trainer Scott Phelan said, before adding Sooner The Bettor will start in the Taylor Mile.<\/p>\n
Phelan also says Meant To Be, the first Kiwi home in the TAB Trot last Friday, will now be asked to adapt to standing-start racing in the Anzac Cup (April 24) and Rowe Cup on May 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think he should be all right at it and we were really happy with him last Friday.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meant To Be will be joined in those races by stablemate Higher Power as the Kiwis try to take advantage of the Aussies who trifectaed the TAB Trot, Keayang Zahara, Jilliby Ballerini and Gus, all heading home.<\/p>\n
TAB markets had Jilliby Ballerini and Gus as the two favourites for both the Anzac Cup and Rowe Cup, before those options were shut on Sunday and neither will be starting so the markets will look vastly different when they reopen.<\/p>\n
The other markets which could change dramatically this week are the 3-year-old trotter\u2019s Sires\u2019 Stakes and Northern Derbies.<\/p>\n
Both had unbeaten filly Duchess Maria as the favourite but trainer Nathan Williamson says this week will be crucial to her chances of coming north.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is booked to fly up there still but she has had a niggly hoof issue and that has cost us a lead-in race,\u201d Williamson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would want to see that improve this week to get the work and even a race into her to before heading to Auckland so we will know more later this week.\u201d <\/p>\n
As talented as Duchess Maria is, it would be a huge ask to come to Auckland to take on a 3-year-old crop in record-breaking mode led by Our Col, Petite Armour and potentially Kyvalley Ray, the latter costing punters plenty with an early gallop at Cambridge last Friday.<\/p>\n
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJason wants to keep him going rather than easing up on him, being an older horse, and of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,2937,42055,1558,31100,83330,39726,48338,337,71,89689,305,14568,8482,78,101,5829,220,111,139,2551,69,1118,3512,36061,25995,213,88,196071,223,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-375858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-aussie","10":"tag-autumn","11":"tag-been","12":"tag-champions","13":"tag-disarray","14":"tag-domination","15":"tag-fallout","16":"tag-features","17":"tag-from","18":"tag-harness","19":"tag-have","20":"tag-horse","21":"tag-huge","22":"tag-in","23":"tag-left","24":"tag-many","25":"tag-markets","26":"tag-new-zealand","27":"tag-newzealand","28":"tag-night","29":"tag-nz","30":"tag-of","31":"tag-racing","32":"tag-racings","33":"tag-remaining","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-surprise","36":"tag-swayzee","37":"tag-the","38":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}