Pallaton to bloom further in the Rosebud

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a day ago

With the rainy weather in Sydney not letting up, the Rosebud meeting will still take place on a heavy track at Rosehill on Aug 16.
Nonetheless, plenty of hot action is to be expected across the eight races (starting at 10.10am Singapore time) picked up by the Singapore Pools for wagering.
The A$200,000 (S$167,000) Listed Rosebud is a three-year-old feature over 1,100m that kicks off the Spring campaign, and has garnered a small but select field of six youngsters following the scratching of Shaggy.
On face value, Pallaton may have put a dampener on his cracking Randwick debut last December and all the hype as ex-Kranji trainer Michael Freedman's best two-year-old last season, with two subsequent unplaced starts.
As a result, his Golden Slipper plans were scuppered, even if Freedman still ended up winning the Australian premier sprint for two-year-olds with Marhoona.
Jockey Tommy Berry is convinced the deflating runs did not do the Wootton Bassett colt justice.
"He took all before him at his first start, then had a little break and was a bit big going into the second run and you saw that late," said the jockey, who won the 2013 Singapore Gold Cup aboard Tropaios for Freedman.
"His third run, he'd had a bit of a setback and he had a horse either side of him in the run, got his mouth open and wanted to charge a little bit.
"He was his own worst enemy towards the end of his prep but it was a long prep for him as well.
"Coming into this preparation, we've put a crossover noseband on him which he seems to have adapted to very quickly. He has put two really nice trials together, so we're pretty confident going into the weekend."
The wet does not daunt Berry either as Wootton Bassett's are known to thrive on such surfaces.
The top Sydney jockey, who finished a distant eighth to perennial champion James McDonald last season, has sprung off the starting blocks this term.
On three wins in only three metropolitan meetings, he is just one win behind early leader McDonald and can bank on not just pre-race (3-2) favourite Pallaton to pad up his score.
Tuileries (5-2) and Our Gold Hope (8-1) are among his other decent chances from his six other bookings, the latter a value hope in the A$200,000 Captivant @ Kia Ora Handicap (1,400m).
The Robert and Luke Price-trained Lope De Vega mare's narrow third to Ceolwulfin the Group 2 Neville Sellwood Stakes (2,000m) sticks out as the best formline.
She will, however, have to be wary of Palmetto (5-1) who is first-up for ex-Kuala Lumpur-based Kiwi trainer John Sargent (Malaysia champion trainer in 2000).
Palmetto had a mixed Autumn campaign that yielded a Listed Canberra Cup (2,000m) success and midfield finishes in Sydney.
Though the son of Ghibellines is seven, Sargent believes he is a late bloomer, but needs to run well on Aug 16 first before taking the path he has plotted for him towards more serious targets like the Group 2 Chelmsford Stakes (1,600m) at Randwick on Sept 6 and the Group 2 Feehan Stakes (1,600m) at Moonee Valley on Sept 26.
"He has finally matured, being a New Zealand-bred horse and being slow-maturing," said Sargent.
"His trials have been super and I'd expect him to run well on Saturday."
However, the 14-5 favourite War Eternal may be the horse they all have to gun down.
The Bjorn Baker-trained four-time winner looked in a spot of bother in a small four-horse field in a Benchmark 94 (1,300m) on a heavy track at Rosehill on Aug 2, but rallied late to keep eventual winner The Novelist honest to the line.
It is an open race but the Pierro seven-year-old can score in the expert hands of Jason Collett.
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