Racing: Galloper Crocetti muscles up for weighty challenges

Racehorse Crocetti running in Ruakākā in 2023.

The first glamour galloper warning of the spring has come a bit earlier this year.

There will be plenty of others coming – there always are, as the elite horses return and trainers hope to temper expectations as their stars run themselves into fitness for the much richer assignments ahead. It is a staple of spring punting, albeit the warning around Crocetti for his resumption at Ruakākā tomorrow comes with nearly a full month of winter remaining.

It is a touch surprising that the 2000 Guineas is even back so early in the new season, especially as co-trainer Danny Walker isn’t using tomorrow’s $40,000 race as a stepping stone to the Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa in three weeks.

He is instead sending the wonderful galloper north for the first start of his 4-year-old career to utilise the drier Ruakākā track, after which he won’t race until the Group 1 Tarzino Trophy at Hastings on September 7.

Which is where the warning comes in.

Walker and training partner Arron Tata couldn’t be happier with Crocetti but he hasn’t raced since his first defeat came in the BCD Group Sprint at Te Rapa on February 10.

He has grown since, adding 30kg to his athletic (but previously underdeveloped) frame and now tips the scales at 520kg. This is a little more bulk, which is likely to no do him any harm in the Group 1 races ahead, races where favours are hard to come by and a strong shoulder and imposing frame can help.

As pleasing as Crocetti was running on well for second in a recent trial, he simply can’t be at his peak tomorrow and has to carry 8kg more than his biggest and maybe only real rival Master Fay.

“It isn’t going to be easy,” admits Walker. “He is ready to go and we started targeting this race two weeks ago when he trialled well, because we want to keep him away from heavy tracks.

“Obviously can’t be screwed down and it is a lot of weight. I’d love him to win but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he got beaten giving that much weight away in his first run back.”

The TAB opened Crocetti $1.60 and he is in the top five gallopers in the country on what he did last season and with the prospect of natural improvement.

With his high cruising speed and long stride, he could even end up our biggest star of the domestic season or get his chance in Australia – but horses are rarely more physically vulnerable than in the first or last runs of campaigns.

Crocetti does get 2kg of weight relief, taking him down to 60kg with stable apprentice Triston Moodley to ride, both for the weight relief and because regular jockey Warren Kennedy was committed to tomorrow’s Winter Cup meeting at Riccarton.

“The weight relief will help and because he is our apprentice, Triston knows the horse,” said Walker. “So he will go well.”

Master Fay is actually fast enough to beat Crocetti, having won the Concorde at Ellerslie in January at only his fourth start, two of those winning in Hong Kong.

He is a serious sprinter, albeit it one with soundness isssues, but is drawn outside Crocetti so will probably have to come around him to beat him.

But with in-form apprentice Ace Lawson-Carroll also claiming 2kg and taking Master Fay’s weight down to an incredibly luxurious 52kg, he could upset the favourite even if Crocetti performs close to his optimum.

Spring may be four weeks away but it kind of feels like it starts at Ruakākā tomorrow.

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.