Racing: Checkmate’s NZ Derby favourite tag set to be shortlived – Mick on Monday

Checkmate won at Ellerslie on Saturday. Photo / Kenton Wright, Race Images

Checkmate’s reign as the New Zealand Derby favourite is set to be shortlived.

But that should ensure that Saturday’s dominant Ellerslie winner is one of the next horses invited to the $3.5m NZB Kiwi on the same day as the Derby.

Checkmate was big and bold beating a progressive field of 3-year-olds in the Armacup Three-Year-Old Stakes and, being by two-time Derby and Caulfield Cup winner Mongolian Khan, he instantly had bookies thinking he was the logical favourite for the Derby at Ellerslie on March 8.

But co-trainer Lance O’Sullivan says that isn’t the race Checkmate will be aimed at, with the first running of the NZB Kiwi slot race at Ellerslie on that same date his clear target.

“He could be very competitive in either but we are aiming him at the NZB Kiwi and keen to get a slot organised,” says O’Sullivan, who trains in partnership with Andrew Scott.

“He has shown he is a quick horse and while he is by a Derby and Caulfield Cup winner, he is bred to be a miler on his dam side.

“So we firmly believe he will be a high-class 1600-metre horse this summer and the Kiwi is our goal.”

As an Ellerslie winner with a high cruising speed and the ability to run close to the pace, Checkmate now looks the most attractive next option for NZB Kiwi (1500m) slot holders because he ticks a lot of boxes, the most important one being eligibility.

Many of our spring stars are either not eligible for the Kiwi as they were bred and sold in Australia, namely Captured By Love and Alabama Lass, while the connections of star colt Savaglee have already said the Australian Guineas a week before the NZB Kiwi is their aim.

There will be plenty of good 3-year-olds emerge this summer, but they will need to be something special to be better NZB Kiwi chances than Checkmate. So, with his trainers having declared their intentions, it wouldn’t surprise to see him being the next horse signed up by one of the 13 slot holders still waiting to fill their ticket.

Of course, plans change in racing and it is not impossible to think Checkmate could detour to a Derby, but with that campaign needing one or even two middle-distance starts to have horses Derby-ready, it is hardly a race horses end up in by accident.

So his $10 price at the head of the Derby market looks a poor risk, while second-favourite Savaglee looks even less likely to be in the Derby.

The one horse who did look every inch a Derby type on Saturday was filly Hinekaha, who stormed into third behind Checkmate and is bred to get past 2000m, with her dam Hinerangi racing up to 2200m in races like the Manawatū Cup.

Being a filly, she wasn’t in the Derby market until yesterday, with the TAB bookies posting her in the Oaks market instead.

But with the 3-year-old pool to be divided between the Derby and the NZB Kiwi on the same day, the Derby could appeal more than usual to fillies capable at 2000m or beyond.

Hinekaha entered the Derby market at $16, but with the doubts over plenty of those around her in that market, she may effectively be the favourite of those who are likely to actually be aimed at the classic.

Meanwhile, the first Ellerslie twilight meeting of the summer on December 12 is set to be shorn of a few in-form jockeys, with Michael McNab and George Rooke both copping suspensions on Saturday.

That will see them sidelined from after this Saturday until they are allowed to ride again the following Saturday on Waikato Cup Day, missing the first big party meeting of the Ellerslie summer.

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.