That wasn\u2019t the case last year when the Team Wealleans Matamata Cup had to be moved from its October date to make way for the transferred Arrowfield Stakes and the Cup was moved to December.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an option again but the racing calendar is very congested at that time of the season,\u201d New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing handicapper Bruce Sherwin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Wednesday date next week works well for the same pool of horses and it shouldn\u2019t affect any of the major races that following weekend, being a different pool from the horses who will start in the Livamol at Ellerslie three days later.\u201d<\/p>\n
The race will obviously have a new field though, drawn from new entries.<\/p>\n
While Matamata only held five races on Saturday, that was enough for champion jockey Opie Bosson to ride a double and find himself in an unusual position atop the national premiership.<\/p>\n
Bosson won on Diamond Jak and Afterglo to take him to 18 wins for the season, one clear of the injured Michael McNab.<\/p>\n
That sees Bosson as the $4.50 third-favourite to win the title, after starting the season rated a $61 premiership chance.<\/p>\n
The three abandoned Matamata races weren\u2019t the only blow to thoroughbred turnover on the weekend as the Timaru meeting was postponed until this Thursday also because of surface water.<\/p>\n
Quintessa to trial<\/p>\n
Proisir Plate winner Quintessa will trial at Awapuni today as she prepares for the Livamol at Ellerslie on October 18.<\/p>\n
The dual Group 1-winning mare was to have started in the Howden Insurance Mile nine days ago but was scratched because of the heavy track and co-trainer Sam Bergerson considered Saturday\u2019s Matamata Cup but decided against it, which ultimately proved a wise decision.<\/p>\n
Quintessa travelled from Matamata to Awapuni on Sunday and while it was initially indicated she would only be heading there for a trip away and a track gallop, she will actually start in a open catchweight 1400m at noon today.<\/p>\n
Quintessa remains an $8 equal-fourth-favourite for the Livamol which for all the recent rain and disruption in the north looks set to contain most of the available proven Group 1 players touted as chances.<\/p>\n
Akuta sidesteps Cup<\/p>\n
The connections of millionaire pacer Akuta decided to dodge the Methven mud.<\/p>\n
The $1.50 favourite was a late scratching from Sunday\u2019s Alabar Methven Cup after overnight rain saw the track come up heavy.<\/p>\n
Heavy tracks are a rarity for open-class pacers, with yesterday\u2019s race one of the few times each season any of the pacing stars are asked to start on a grass track.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t keen on starting him on a heavy track for a few reasons,\u201d co-trainer Mark Purdon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he is likely to head to Addington to race this Friday instead and then again a week later in the Canterbbury Classic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two Australian megastars set to come to Addington to take on Akuta and the locals, Leap To Fame and Swazyee, had differing fortunes in Australia on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Leap To Fame was his normal machine-like self winning at Albion Park but two-time New Zealand Cup winner Swayzee was surprisingly beaten by Kingman at Menangle.<\/p>\n
Leap To Fame and Swayzee are supposed to meet in the Victoria Cup at Melton on October 18 before coming to Addington but punters shouldn\u2019t treat either as a certain New Zealand Cup starter until their hooves touch New Zealand soil.<\/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":"That wasn\u2019t the case last year when the Team Wealleans Matamata Cup had to be moved from its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[35361,80025,80022,1841,47330,80024,26235,909,30779,9925,80023,16921,16922,6903,9581,3004,80026,26155,16931,101,25455,61567,60783,11557,25459,1850,18577,56,54,55,15452,11556],"class_list":["post-180502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-chance","tag-80025","tag-abandoned","tag-at","tag-contest","tag-crack","tag-cup","tag-get","tag-horses","tag-majority","tag-matamata","tag-mick","tag-monday","tag-on","tag-race","tag-racing","tag-rescheduled","tag-runners","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-start","tag-still","tag-take","tag-that","tag-their","tag-to","tag-two","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-were","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}