The Awara Park track has been Heavy for most of the week and Crocetti’s co-trainer Danny Walker says last season’s Railway winner won’t run on Sunday unless the track improves to a Soft 7 or better.
“We definitely won’t be sending him around on a Heavy track so we might not even know until Sunday morning,” Walker said.
He and training partner Arron Tata are thrilled with how Crocetti has come up this campaign after a luckless trip to the Quokka in Perth in April, in which the wonderful gelding was galloped on.
“I’m not sure he was going that good at the time anyway but he got galloped on and it got his tendon sheath, so it could have been really bad,” Walker said.
“But the vet there did a great job of patching him up so we didn’t miss the plane home a few days later and it hasn’t been an issue since.”
Crocetti looked his normal enthusiastic self in winning at the Te Rapa trials two weeks ago and on a good track at weight-for-age over 1215m on Sunday, he would be the horse to beat.
But like several of the big names in the hot field, if the track is Heavy come Sunday, the race could get put in the too-hard basket.
“Longer-term, we are thinking the Telegraph, Railway, the BCD Sprint at Te Rapa and maybe even the Group 1 Ōtaki-Māori Mile, but we have got to get him started first.”
While Grylls is stoked to get the Crocetti call-up, he is far more likely to be winning on Hostility at Taupō today, picking up that ride as his good mate Opie Bosson is suspended until next week.
Grylls actually rode Hostility twice last season, including when he was second in the Group 1 Sires’ Produce at Trentham, and even though 1300m will be short of his best distance second-up today, if he is going to be winning the 2000 Guineas in a month, he will want to show something today.
Grylls also rates debutante High Society (R3, No 10) today while another of his rides who has shown up at the trials is Burnerphone, who makes her debut in Race 4.
“I’ve got a really good book there, including a few more for Te Akau, but the fields look strong so it will be good racing,” he said.
With Taupō today and Rotorua on Sunday, it means no northern gallops on Saturday, with Grylls heading to Ōtaki while Ashburton holds the Group 3 Barneswood Farm Stakes.
“I have got some good rides at Ōtaki but a lot will depend on the weather and which ones actually start,” Grylls said.
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.
