Racing: Luck to play major role in $200,000 Windsor Park Plate

Jennifer Eccles has a ton of talent. Photo / Trish Dunell

Luck can be a punter's best friend or their worst enemy, and will almost certainly decide the $200,000 Windsor Park Plate at Hastings.

There are those who will argue luck is important in any race. But sometimes that isn't true.

Horses such as Sunline and Might And Power more often than not took bad luck out of the equation, racing up on the speed.

Bonecrusher didn't seem to understand luck, or race patterns for that matter. He simply bludgeoned them with sheer willpower.

But for normal, garden variety equine stars, luck still matters and it could matter an awful lot in the second Group 1 of the season.

There isn't much talent-wise between Avantage, Melody Belle, Supera, Two Illicit, Jennifer Eccles and maybe even Prise De Fer, Callsign Mav and Loire. Any of them could win with the right run, if they can get into a rhythm and be produced at the right time.

But where there will be good luck there will be bad luck, as when punters got a bleeding nose in the Tarzino two weeks ago because Avantage was slow to jump and ended up midfield and wide.

The shortish run to the bend from the 1600m start point at Hastings means hardened warriors such as Shadows Cast and The Mitigator and probably even Tarzino shockmaster Callsign Mav have little choice but to work forward early and that could mean too many class mares trying to fit into too few spots in behind them.

Those without natural early tactical speed such as Two Illicit, Loire and Jennifer Eccles face potentially being squeezed out the back, from where their races could be as good as over.

Jennifer Eccles has a ton of talent. Photo / Trish Dunell

But if a mare such as Two Illicit or Supera can hold a spot and track favourites Avantage and Melody Belle who are forced to work hard or wide, then the swoopers could get their chance.

Avantage deserves her favouritism even if she was a touch one-paced to the line in the Tarzino, a run suggesting she was looking to the 1600m.

Her work has been sharper this week than it was Tarzino week and she beat Melody Belle fair and square when they were paired up on Tuesday so she is the one to beat but she has to begin more enthusiastically than she did two weeks ago.

Melody Belle hasn't fluked winning 10 Group 1 races and might be the best horse in this race, as she was the last two years, but on both those occasions she was set for this race, whereas this year it is a Plan B after the Sydney Spring Carnival at Royal Randwick didn't work out.

With so much class the winner will almost certainly be the horse for whom nothing goes wrong.

Windsor Park Plate Day

What: The biggest day of the thoroughbred racing season so far.

Where: Hastings.

When: First race at 12.20pm.

Highlights: $200,000 Windsor Park Plate, $100,000 Hawke's Bay Guineas.

The Punt: Avantage the one to beat over Two Illicit in the Windsor Park; Need I Say More should win the Guineas.

Other meetings: Riccarton races, first race 11.30am; Randwick gallops, featuring Kiwi mare Probabeel; Cambridge harness, first race 4.18pm.