Wild Night is very good, maybe even better than that. He has a constant acceleration that sees him roll over top of horses.
He has barrier two and the king of the Karaka Million in jockey Opie Bosson, and his sectionals winning the Uncle Remus on this track a month ago were better than Legarto’s, so you know what you are going to get. It will take a good horse to beat him.
Legarto is a good horse. She might be special. Her last three wins have been stunning, her last 100m in all three bordering on freakish.
If the pace is hot in the mile, she gets a head of steam at the 400m and then doesn’t lose momentum, she might produce one of the great KM moments.
But here is the problem. Legarto can explode but before she does you have the agonising wait while her fuse burns down.
She comes off the bit, she flounders, flops and eventually flattens out. Then, boom.
In her last three wins she has looked vulnerable for at least 100m while she got herself organised.
Tomorrow, drawn barrier one, she will almost certainly end up behind her key rivals and she doesn’t look a filly who would enjoy being ridden for luck and ducking through gaps.
So Ryan Elliot is charged with finding the right rival to follow, riding her through her flat spot and then hitting the turbo, all without letting Prowess and Wild Night get too far in front.
As her stunning stablemate Levante has often shown, you can be the fastest finisher but if you give away too big a start you get the kudos but not the winner’s rug.
Co-trainer Ken Kelso is adamant Legarto is spot-on and the draw won’t worry him, though he says barrier one isn’t what he would have chosen.
“But she is ready, don’t worry about that,” says Kelso.
Will Legarto’s fuse ignite quickly enough? To remain unbeaten she will have to be dazzling and be the best horse, probably by quite some margin.
It will be fun finding out if she is.
Trainers out to show Prowess in Classic
The men behind Prowess go into the Karaka Classic tomorrow with a tactical advantage they hope doesn’t turn into their rivals inadvertently working together against them.
Prowess was an impressive last-start winner of the Auckland Guineas and before that was a close third to Pier in the 2000 Guineas at Riccarton, so she has serious form against some of our best male gallopers, rare for a three-year-old filly at this early stage of the season.
She achieved both results by using her natural speed early to race handy, suggesting she looks perfectly suited by barrier five, and in a normal three-year-old race she may even start favourite for trainers Roger James and Robert Wellwood.
But the Classic is shaping as the race of the season so far and while Prowess looks like she should be able to control near the front end of the field, Wellwood says his key rivals could be closer than many think.
“We know how good Legarto is so when she drew one it at least boosted our confidence a bit because we hoped it would put her in a position she hasn’t been in.
“Our filly is spot-on and has such good early speed we expect to be up handy but what we really hope doesn’t happen is we end up with Wild Night on our back from barrier two and even worse, Legarto on his back.
“A lot needs to happen for a situation like that to unfold and I hope they are back in the field more worrying about each other and we can put four lengths on them at the top of the straight.
“If we can, we can win but if we get to the 200m with them having come off our back and all three are across the track, well we know how good they are.”
