By Don Farmer
Well- seasoned Opaki mare Red Sunset could give the Feilding Gold Cup field a real hurry up at Awapuni tomorrow especially being down in the weights in a field which is not particularly strong.
The Kylie Little-trained galloper has been a model of consistency and has been swapping efforts between hurdle and flat racing with success in both.
Red Sunset has many strings to her bow in that any distance beyond 1600m doesn’t seem to bother her and she can race on most surfaces, although preferring soft and heavy going.
Senior rider Darryl Bradley takes the ride tomorrow, his first on the Zed mare, and if the record is anything to go by it’s likely the mare will quickly seek the lead, possibly vying for it with Marton galloper Willybe.
The lighter weight will carry Red Sunset a fair distance, perhaps the whole of the journey.
A race rival for Red Sunset will be fellow Opaki galloper Blathwayt, from Alby MacGregor’s stable.
This fellow is a class act on his day and showed he was ready for a fresh campaign with a Foxton trial win late last month.
Since then he has started twice, the first occasion at Hastings for a creditable fourth in a group 3 over 1400m at Hastings and at Trentham last Saturday when he set himself a hard task by losing four lengths at the start and having to play catch-up finishing seventh in the 12-horse contest.
Regular rider Jonathan Riddell will be reunited with Blathwayt tomorrow the mount on the last two occasions having gone to Rosie Myers and Nivesh Teeluck due to Riddell being unable to make the lighter weights.
Earlier in the day trainer Gerald Innes is expected to line-up Centre Attention in race 3, a rating 65 over 1600m.
The gelding will be dropping back from rating75 events and has copped topweight of 60kg along with Rock On but Innes has opted to put apprentice Holly Andrew aboard which will afford Centre Attention some weight relief.
Centre Attention should be well suited to the track conditions if they remain soft as was predicted yesterday.
Three of his four career wins have been on soft surfaces, the other being on a good3 at Woodville two years back.
The gelding put in a fair effort at Hawera two starts back, finishing fifth of 13 on a soft9 but was found out at Trentham last week when he capitulated with 600m to run on a heavy10 track.
Innes has accepted with Blame de Angels in race 4 and has booked glamour apprentice Tim Johnson to ride him.
Blame de Angels has been racing only moderately lately with a fifth at Hastings on October 1 being his best recent effort.
Johnson is building a formidable reputation as an astute young jockey and is getting the mounts to allow him to continue the pathway to success.
The only remaining Wairarapa-trainer runner will be Sir Kingwood in race 5.
Owned by his trainer Kylie Little this fellow can be a little hard to read but on his day is capable to taking top honours.
He is another who is quite happy in rain-affected ground and will be returning to the longer distance of 1400m here after two attempts at 1200m.
Bradley has been engaged to ride Sir Kingwood.
