“All wins are important but when you win a Karaka Million or a Group 1 it says a lot about where the stable is at because these are not easy races to win.
“The stable is working really well and all week, when we haven’t been training horses, we have been at Karaka finding the next ones to buy.
“We will look at getting maybe 10 and syndicating them because racing is flying here and we want to be a big part of that.”
While Marsh has a deep presence across tomorrow’s fast and furious twilight programme, he says the “Bourbon train” is where punters should be looking.
He has two Bourbon prefixed runners, Bourbon Empress in the $1m Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic and Bourbon Proof in the $1.5m KM Three-Year-Old and thinks both can win.
The Bourbon prefix comes from United States-based ownership group Bourbon Lane Stable NZ, who own shares in both horses and have been huge supporters of Marsh, support now getting paid back at the highest level.
Bourbon Empress (R2, No 11) has really arrived this summer, winning the Rich Hill Mile so impressively on New Year’s Day she is the $4.20 second favourite behind the biggest question horse of the meeting Orchestral.
“She is right in the zone,” says Marsh.
“Every time she goes to the races she gets better, as we all saw in the Rich Hill.
“She has worked really well since that and while the gate is a bit sticky she has overcome that before.
“Orchestral is the best horse in the race but I don’t think we know if she is racing at her absolute peak whereas I know our mare is. So she can win.”
Orchestral’s flat form so far mirrors the non-appearance of Savaglee in the Three-Year-Old in that both things are giving rival trainers hope they can sneak a win that seemed unlikely a month ago.
Marsh has three reps in the $1.5m Three-Year-Old but says Kiwi Skyhawk and Balsan might ultimately prove better Derby horses.
But not Bourbon Proof, who may have only won a maiden last start but his overall form is vastly superior to that.
“He has raced against some of the best of his age like Checkmate and Hinekaha and with a bit of luck could have won those races, so he is far better than a last-start maiden winner.
“He is in a really good place and I think he will settle handy enough from the draw and get his chance. I really rate him.”
That market has been confused by Damask Rose drawing so wide along with a few of the other fancies.
Marsh has three in the Almanzor Trophy to start the night “but that is really strong” and last season’s Telegraph winner Mercurial in the $700,000 Sistema Railway, the sensational sprint to end the programme.
“He has done a great job and we love him but this might be the best field he has met or close to it,” says Marsh.
“Those 3-year-old fillies in there really add to the race but not in a good way for us. So he will need to produce something special.”
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.
