Racing: Concert Hall can get standing ovation with Auckland Cup win

Concert Hall winning the Group 3 City of Auckland Cup at Ellerslie in January. Photo / Trish Dunell

One of the biggest weeks of Roger James' career off the track could be crowned by Auckland Cup glory at Ellerslie tomorrow.

And while his racing queen Concert Hall has yet to win over the ultimate test of 3200m, she has the breeding to suggest she can.

Cambridge trainer James and training partner Robert Wellwood had a stellar week at the Karaka yearling sales, the date change for which is the reason Ellerslie has moved Cup day to tomorrow.

James and Wellwood shocked the sales ring by buying a stunning $900,000 colt by The Autumn Sun on day three of the sales and pretty much got the lots they really wanted, even buying at the top of Book Two on Thursday.

"It was a very satisfying sale, you rarely leave the sales ground with the quality of horses we did this week," says James.

Those equine treats will have to wait until next season, though, as James and Wellwood have five entered at Pukekohe today as the entree to tomorrow's huge Auckland Cup day meeting at Ellerslie.

The stable has Concert Hall as favourite in the iconic Cup, and while she has yet to race over 3200m, James is confident she will handle it.

"I suppose you never really know when they step up to 3200m but her dam won a hurdle race and this mare relaxes like she will handle it.

"So we think the distance will be okay and sometimes the 3200m at Ellerslie isn't as testing as at other tracks."

Concert Hall sits alongside well-travelled topweight Sound as by far the best-performed horses in the Cup, and Concert Hall comes in well, carrying just 56kg compared with the 59kg carried when second in the Avondale Cup three weeks ago. She was a brave second then and meets some of her rivals tomorrow up to 5kg better off under this weight scale, so picks herself as the horse to beat.

Sound is the other class act and a quick look at his best Australian form would suggest he is the horse to beat, but this is his third Auckland Cup, and while brave, he has been fairly beaten when placed in the last two.

The Cup is the highlight of Ellerslie's last race meeting for perhaps 18 months, as the track is to be replaced by a StrathAyr surface and the meeting also contains the Group 1 races Sistema Stakes and Bonecrusher NZ Stakes, so the track will get a high-class send-off.

That unusual situation sees Pukekohe as the main domestic meeting today, with James rating Contemplation (R1, No1) as the stable's best chance.

Much of the parochial Kiwi punting interest today will be on flying mare Levante, who has picked an incredibly tough Newmarket Handicap at Flemington to make her Australian debut.

Fresh from winning the Telegraph at Trentham and BCD Sprint at Te Rapa, Levante is in career- best form and will need to be against exceptional three-year-old Home Affairs and Kiwi-bred Lost And Running in the A$1.5 million sprint down Flemington's straight 1200m.

The Flemington meeting also hosts the Australian Cup featuring Callsign Mav, winner of the first two Group1 races in New Zealand this season before transferring to the Danny O'Brien stable.