Crocetti and Belardo Boy face weight challenges in key races

Superstar jumper West Coast should win today. Photo / Peter Rubery

On what feels like horse racing’s crossover day the two biggest names both face the same weighty issue.

The actual racing season re-started on Thursday, although it never really ends, it just turns a page of sorts so the horses can have cakeless birthdays and we can start all over again.

But Mother Nature’s seasons do change and while it may not feel like it outside today’s racing signals that spring is not too far away while still reminding us we have a way to go.

The racing at Ruakākā boasts a couple of genuine stars of spring and/or summer in Crocetti and Master Fay whereas at Riccarton there are few things that say winter more than the running of the Winter Cup and the start of Grand National week.

The Winter Cup is a traditional big handicap mile with at least a dozen chances whereas the sprint clash of Crocetti and Master Fay up north probably only has two winning chances.

While the bookies think they won’t, both races could ultimately be decided by weight.

Both Crocetti at Ruakaka and defending Winter Cup champion Belardo Boy will be asked to carry 60kgs as favourite. It could cost them both victory.

Crocetti is so fast and fluent he might get away with such a big weight over 1100m but punters shouldn’t forget this is a horse who was still only 3 a couple of days ago being asked to give the Concorde winner in Master Fay 8kgs once they both have their apprentice allowances shaved off.

That is a giant ask and one that suggests as talented as Crocetti is, and he may well win the Tarzino at Group 1 level next start, his $1.60 is just a little too miserly to make him a sensible bet today.

Punters will get a lot better return with Belardo Boy in the Winter Cup as he might start a $6 favourite but he also has a lot more dangers, one of them being traffic.

As spacious as Riccarton is many a Winter Cup day has become a race to the right part of its expansive home straight and if Belardo Boy ends up even a lane or two wider or inside where he should be, that could be problematic.

That and the fact that very few of our big-field handicaps are won by horses carrying 60kgs.

Trainer Lisa Latta knows that and isn’t sure whether it will stop her Boy’s defence today.

“Weight can stop a train, we all know that,” says Latta, fresh off finishing third equal on the trainer’s premiership for the second straight season.

“And it might be enough to get him beaten.

“But he was very good last start and he loves heavy tracks. His work has been really good and he has travelled down well so I still wouldn’t be surprised if he still won.

“But you see plenty of good horses get beaten carrying those sort of weights.

The other issue for Belardo Boy, who carried just 53kgs to win this race last season, is this is a deep Winter Cup.

Rivals like Justaskme, Aljay, Green Luck, Bradman, Freeze Frame, Cork and Jay Bee Gee all winning chances and that is not exhausting the possibilities.

While the 60kgs for our topweights in today’s two biggest flat races may be enough to test them the stars of the two jumps races at Riccarton today will have to carry a heck of a lot more and probably get away with it.

Stablemates Berry The Cash (Sydenham Hurdles) and West Coast (Koral Steeples) will both have to lump 73kgs in their features, lead-ups to next week’s Grand Nationals.

As imposing as that sounds it is against 66kgs minimum weights so they are only carrying 7kgs more than most, almost all, of their rivals. They have both already proved they can do that this season.

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.