Racing: Dragon Leap the best each way chance in the Tarzino Trophy at Hastings

Dragon Leap winning the Foxbridge at Te Rapa. Photo / Supplied

Trainer Andrew Scott’s Super Saturday isn’t shaping up as he would have liked but don’t let that stop you backing Dragon Leap in today’s $400,000 Tarzino Trophy at Hastings today.

The first group 1 of the season was supposed to kick-start a magical few hours for Scott, who not only trains Dragon Leap in partnership with Lance O’Sullivan, but is an obsessed NZ Warriors fan.

The Matamata trainer is one of those Warriors fans who loves them just as much when they lose as when they are on a winning roll so he didn’t take Thursday’s news of Shaun Johnson’s calf injury all that well.

“We can still hope for a miracle this weekend and even if that doesn’t happen I hope he is back next week,” says Scott, sounding like just about every Warriors fan in the country.

Most Warriors fans don’t have a serious winning chance in a group 1 race today to take their minds off footy and a rock hard fit Dragon Leap could be the ideal horse to exploit fitness concerns around the likes of Legarto and Sharp N Smart today.

Dragon Leap has always been group 1 quality he just hasn’t won one yet, but not only he is the fittest of the favourites today but fully sound.

“We don’t often the luxury of him being fully fit and sound but he has been this campaign and he will love the good track so he has a lot going for him,” says Scott.

“We know how good the opposition are and a mare like Legarto might be a freak but I doubt she or the other returning horses can be as fit as us.

“So he will get his chance and if he gets the right run into the race he will hit the line hard.”

Dragon Leap appeals as the best each way bet in the race or at least a saver for those who back Legarto, who the TAB have boosted to $4.

Legarto is a special horse but with only two moderate trials under her belt and her coat still yet to shed all it’s winter fluff, she has to be vulnerable even if the race conditions stack up beautifully for her.

Add in Sharp N Smart, Pennyweka, Pier and the poorly-drawn La Crique and the Tarzino is one of the most anticipated launches to a New Zealand group 1 season in the last 20 years.

Earlier in the programme both the boys and girls three-year-old races at Hastings will prove crucial early guides to the spring classic crop and instantly impact the markets for the 1000 and 2000 Guineas.

Hastings isn’t the only highlight of a day that will have racing fans, so many of who have similar passion for sport, switching channels.

Ruakaka hold a strong programme while just minutes after the Warriors kick off New Zealand’s Queen of the Turf in Imperatriz returns to racing taking on Everest winner Giga Kick in the A$300,000 McEwen Stakes at The Valley.