Affirmative Action to race Well Written at Ellerslie for 3-year-old bragging rights

Affirmative Action has been brilliant at Ellerslie but meets a budding superstar in Well Written on Friday. Photo / Kenton Wright

BOXING DAY AT ELLERSLIE

What: One of New Zealand’s biggest race days.

Where: Auckland.

When: Friday, first race 12.45pm

Who: Many of our best gallopers as well as exciting 3-year-olds.

Major races: $500,000 Cambridge Stud Zabeel Classic (Group 1), $270,000 Jimmy Schick Shaw’s Auckland Guineas (Group 2), $270,000 Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Classic (Group 2), $125,000 Dunstan Feeds Stayers Final, $110,000 Stella Artois Championship Final.

Can I go? Yes, tickets available for most levels at www.ellerslie.co.nz or walk-up available.

Rival trainer Pam Gerard says she isn’t scared of unbeaten filly Well Written in today’s Auckland Guineas at Ellerslie.

But Gerard, who has had a remarkable run with 3-year-olds in the past 16 months, admitted she doesn’t know exactly how good Well Written really is yet.

Gerard’s gelding Affirmative Action and Well Written clash in the $270,000 Group 2, which will be an emotional race regardless of who wins because it is named in honour of 10-year-old Jimmy Schick, a racing family member who died in an all-terrain vehicle accident in May.

The race also serves as the best guide yet to the strength of the respective sexes in the 3-year-old crop, with Well Written our best filly so far and Affirmative Action could lay claim to being the best male, albeit being beaten by stablemate Romanoff in the 2000 Guineas.

Well Written is a hot favourite for today’s 1400m, the Karaka Millions and the NZB Kiwi, while Affirmative Action is second favourite in all three races.

If Affirmative Action beats the filly today he will change the narrative of the racing summer.

“I am not scared of the filly [Well Written],” Gerard told the Herald.

“She has looked very good and her times in the 1000 Guineas suggest she is top class but we still don’t know what she is beating.

“I am not saying we will beat her but I think we can.

“I think everybody will know a lot more about this crop after Friday.”

Gerard, who trained last season’s best 3-year-old, Savaglee, said Affirmative Action is better than he was when nosed out by Romanoff in the 2000 Guineas at Riccarton.

“He hated every inch of the wet track that day and how brave he was impressed me just as much as Romanoff did winning,” she said.

“I am certain he is a better horse now. He has come back from Christchurch bigger and stronger and he just looks more like a racehorse now.”

While Gerard thinks she has the horse to challenge budding superstar Well Written, she admitted her boy might need to run past the filly, which is easier said than done.

Affirmative Action was able to take a position outside the leader when winning at Ellerslie two starts ago but Gerard is convinced he is a better horse chasing and she will be telling catch rider Mick Dee to let him settle today.

But even if Dee can work his magic and get on the back of Well Written, that gives the filly’s jockey Matt Cartwright the upper hand in dictating when he asks her for her best.

That could leave Affirmative Action trying to make up two lengths in the straight on a filly who looks like she has been fired out of a slingshot when she sprints.

With the guaranteed emotion of the race, the repercussions it will have for future markets and the added class of That’s Gold and the threat of He Who Dares improving with the addition of blinkers, this Guineas could light the fuse of Ellerslie’s summer.

■ Gerard has confirmed Romanoff will head to Trentham next Saturday for the Levin Classic and Savaglee will make his first public appearance in months in an exhibition gallop at Taupō on Sunday.

“After that [Savaglee] is likely to trial, potentially at Ellerslie on January 11, and then we will start making decisions about when he races, but I am thinking the BCD Sprint [Te Rapa, Feb 7] is his most likely option.”

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.