Horse racing: Easter topweight supports Vic move

Aegon has returned to his best this season.

Marroni being topweight for Saturday’s Easter Handicap at Pukekohe confirms to trainer Andrew Forsman how important his new Victorian training base is going to be next season.

Forsman will line up Marroni and White Noise in the Easter, one of three black type races at Pukekohe, as a successful feature-race season there winds down.

Marroni is a 93 rated galloper yet is clear topweight for the historic mile race and will carry 60kg, which Forsman knows is nobody’s fault but less than ideal.

“It is kind of hard to believe he is topweight, and clear topweight, being a rating 93,” says the Cambridge trainer.

“I remember the days you would have horses rated well over 100 in the Easter and his weight this week is one of the reasons he is booked on a plane to Melbourne after this race.

“He can go over there and race week in, week out for that sort of money and not have to carry that sort of weight.”

Marroni will eventually be stabled at the stunning Macedon Lodge complex outside Melbourne where Forsman is setting up a satellite stable.

He will have only a few horses there over the winter but those numbers will grow in the spring.

“It is going to be a great base for those carnivals obviously and quite a few owners are keen to send their horses there.

“Many of those horses will do their early prep here before heading across, but some, like Ethereal Star and Full Of Sincerity, are already in Australia so will stay there and do their whole prep there.”

Forsman had a stunning start to spring racing in Melbourne last year, including training a Saturday treble at Caulfield in October, one of the few times a Saturday metropolitan treble has been achieved by a Kiwi trainer.

The Easter isn’t the only major Mile Forsman has on his mind, as stable star Aegon landed in Hong Kong yesterday to prepare for the HK$20 million Champions Mile on April 30.

The former NZ 2000 Guineas winner was invited to the glamour race in which he will take on local hero Golden Sixty, and while Forsman acknowledges the enormity of the task, he says it is worthwhile.

“There will be some very good horses there but it won’t be a big field and he has earned his shot at something like this.”

Aegon has returned to his best this season, with close-up runs in some of Australia’s most elite Mile races and he will have two key additions for the Champions Meeting at Sha Tin.

“We have James McDonald confirmed to ride and we will also put the blinkers on him for the first time,” says Forsman.

“I have always wanted to try the blinkers on him and never really found the ideal race but it is worth the gamble for this race.

“He is fit and ready to go and wore the blinkers in a jumpout at Flemington two weeks ago and he also galloped really well on the weekend.

“He travelled up last night [from Australia] and so far, so good.”

The Pukekohe meeting has a strong, even feel to many of the features on Saturday and the track was rated a good4 yesterday but with the forecast of rain potentially on the day.

While that could change markets and even results, the facility has been a huge winner for Auckland Thoroughbred Racing over the past six months, allaying initial fears over how its major meetings would be accepted with Ellerslie out of play.

It would be fair to say many northern thoroughbred participants and punters now have a new appreciation for Pukekohe Park and some fonder memories than expected of its role this season.