Adam I Am drops out of the $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic

Adam I Am winning the Thames Cup at Te Aroha.

An embarrassment of options will see exciting four-year-old Adam I Am drop out of the $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic today.

And when you consider what else trainer Glenn Old can aim him at it is hard to argue with his decision.

Adam I Am was the one-time second favourite for the Aotearoa, the new four-year-old mile race on TAB Karaka Millions night this Saturday, having won three of his four starts this season and looked a group horse in doing so.

His last start win came in the Thames Cup but the reason Old has so many options is because Adam I Am started the season as a maiden and that makes him eligible for the $350,000 Sir Patrick Hogan Karapiro Classic at Te Rapa on February 10.

That is the Waikato innovation race and the conditions read like they were written for Adam I Am, with the son of Almanzor to be asked to carry 59.5kgs over 1600m against others who started the season winless.

“It is for horses who were maidens on August 1 so it is pretty hard to turn our backs on that,” says Old.

“It is a perfect race for him and while we would also like to be in the Aotearoa we would be taking on three or four group 1 winners there.

“So I will be pulling him out of that on Monday morning and aiming at Te Rapa.”

Old then has the option of aiming Adam I Am as another innovation race, the $350,000 Rangitoto Classic at Ellerslie on March 2, which is over 1500m.

It is only open to horses trained by those outside the top 10 on the stakes premiership as of December 1 so Old, who doesn’t race big numbers, is eligible to start horses in the Rangitoto.

It should be stronger than the Te Rapa race as horses like Desert Lightning, La Crique and Sacred Satono will be eligible for the Ellerslie race because their trainers did not have big teams out winning races early in the season.

Sacred Satono and Desert Lightning are set to clash with Legarto and Sharp N Smart in the Aotearoa Classic on Saturday while La Crique will resume in the $500,000 Westbury Classic for which she is the $3.20 favourite.

She hasn’t raced since finishing third to Legarto and Aquacade in the Matamata Cup on October but won in a Tauranga trials on January 16.

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’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.