Return To Conquer winning at Ellerslie.
Champion trainer Mark Walker may live on both sides of the Tasman these days but it was easy to choose Matamata over Flemington as his racing destination today.
Walker, who trains the Te Akau team in partnership with Sam Bergerson, now has a house in both Matamata and Cranbourne, where Te Akau are expanding to a 70-horse stable.
He could have easily chosen to be at Flemington today to look after a team headlined by Captured By Love on her Australian debut but will instead oversee the stable’s elite juveniles in two Group races at Matamata.
“These meetings mean a lot to anybody who trains in the Matamata region,” says Walker of today’s huge card.
“We are lucky in that we have great staff and leaders in both countries and because I have a house in each I can choose where I think I am best placed.”
Today that is his “home” track at Matamata, where Karaka Millions winner La Dorada returns in the $225,000 J Swap Breeders Stakes, while earlier in the card the $150,000 Fairview Matamata Slipper may go some way to sorting out our juvenile colts' pecking order even if it has only five starters.
Three of those are colts by Snitzel trained by Walker and Bergerson so with the Group 1 Sistema Stakes just three weeks away they are getting to the very pointy end of their season.
“They are all good colts, as their form shows, but I think at this stage Return To Conquer would be the top pick, for this race at least,” says Walker.
“He has yet to be beaten in a race or a trial and I actually think he will step up another level when the bigger races come up.”
La Dorada has already done that winning the Karaka Millions and Walker says her toughness will be her greatest weapon against the form dropoff which can sometimes affect horses in the race after a Grand Final.
“It can happen and we are very aware of it but we aren’t as worried about it with her because she is so tough, that is what we are finding with the stock of Super Seth,” says Walker.
“It is a good field but she is a very good filly so [she] and the colts are our best chances of the day.”
Today’s meeting sees the return of local heroine Legarto in the Lisa Chittick Champagne Stakes. While she was opened favourite by the TAB, she has drifted this week, with understandable concerns around whether she can be close enough to her peak to win carrying her 58kg topweight fresh up after 10 months away from racing.
The Walker/Bergerson-trained Skew Wiff carries the same weight and looks each-way value at $7, providing she is on her best behaviour, in a stacked race also containing Provence, Imprevu, Irish Legacy and NZB Kiwi contender Ardalio.
Add to those features the Matamata Vets Kaimai Stakes, which could be a crucial Auckland Cup form guide, and you can see why Walker wanted to be home for Matamata’s meeting of the year.
Across the Tasman the stable has a strong hand at Flemington but by far its most anticipated runner will be Captured By Love.
The NZ 2000 Guineas winner found the 1200m of the Railway a little too sharp from a wide draw last start but should relish the step up to 1400m this afternoon on the big track.
“She is really well and I think close to her peak, but she will need to be because it is a good field,” says Walker.
*New Zealand’s standardbred sales kick off at Karaka today with 130 lots catalogued at the very select northern sale.
Coverage of the sale starts on the New Zealand Bloodstock website at 12.30pm with the first lot at 1pm. The sales then move to Christchurch for one day on Tuesday.
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.