Warwick Farm preview: Key factors to help Bjorn Baker's mare Starmae
Don't miss out on the headlines from Horse Racing. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Trainer Bjorn Baker is hoping a drop in grade and weight can help Starmae get back to winning form when she steps out on her home track.
The four-year-old has been good in his three starts this preparation including her last two runs in Saturday metropolitan company when fifth to Memoria at Randwick and seventh to Oh Diamond Lil at the Scone stand-alone meeting on May 17
Starmae carried 56kg and 57kg respectively in those two races and drops down to 54.5kg after the claim of apprentice Olivia Chambers in the Benchmark 72 Handicap (1300m).
'This is a good race for her. It's a drop back in grade after running in Saturday grade in her last two where she acquitted herself well,' said Baker.
'She gets a good drop in weight with Olivia's claim and she is one from one on this mare having won at Wyong last year.
'Starmae galloped outstanding on Saturday. She was really sharp.
'She may have just taken a couple of runs to get to her peak but this is a good scenario over 1300m again, back in grade, lovely gate (barrier 4) and no weight.
'This is her race to run well.'
Baker also saddles up consistent gelding Bat Out Of Hell in the same race where he has drawn barrier 11 but feels he will be better suited once he steps up over a little further.
'He probably needs 1400m and 1500m but he has to start somewhere,' he said.
'He is a horse who always tries his hardest and he has trialled better this time in better than he has in previous preparations.
'We're confident he is going to have a good preparation. Whether it's this week or whether he just gets run under his belt and he'll be ready to go.'
Baker was looking forward to seeing Swordplay make her debut at Canterbury last week but she was a late scratching after getting her leg up in the barriers.
The daughter of Shalaa has shown plenty of ability and speed to lead all-the-way for big wins in her two barrier trials under Rachel King.
'This is obviously 'Take Two' after she was scratched at the barriers last Wednesday which was unfortunate,' he said.
'She's a lovely, promising filly and she couldn't be any more professional than she has been in her trials.'
Swordplay has drawn barrier 6 in the TAB Handicap (1100m) with King aboard.
'She has good speed and should roll forward to settle in the first few. Hopefully she brings her trials form to race day,' Baker said.
Baker also has Jarrito set to debut in the same race.
The daughter of I Am Invincible and Group 1 winner Spright has placed in both trials but will improve with race experience according to Baker.
'She is lovely filly who is still a little bit raw but has done enough in her trials to say she is ready to go to the races,' he said.
'She is definitely going to be better for the run but she is an exciting filly.
'She has drawn an ideal gate and she will hopefully get a smother just behind the speed. She has got a really nice turn of foot.'
Baker was pleased with Regimental Colours in her first campaign where she placed in two of her three runs at Canterbury and is looking forward to her return in the Hitotsu At Arrowfield Plate (1100m).
'She has improved a lot both mentally and physically from what she did that preparation,' he said.
'Her trials have been good and while she is open to improvement, she is there to run well.'
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Well-bred filly Manaajem kicked off her career with a win and trainer Peter Snowden is quietly confident she can start her second campaign the same way.
A three-quarter sister to recent Group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes winner Charm Stone and a full sister to Snowden's dual Listed winner Najmaty, Manaajem showed nice ability winning her two trials before debuting with a big win at Wyong on December 31.
After pulling up lame when fifth to Alliri on the Kensington 15 days later and was spelled.
'She was just immature and jarred up in her knees,' said Snowden.
'That's why we gave her a good spell and she seems a lot stronger this time in. We have had no issues with her at all.'
The daughter of Tassort has trialled stylishly ahead of her return in the Traffic Warden @ Darley Handicap (1100m) when she has drawn barrier 3 with Tommy Berry aboard.
'Both her trials have been quite good. We have always thought quite a bit of her and we are pleased with the way she has come back,' Snowden said.
'She has a good draw and Tommy has ridden her in nearly all her work and in her trials.
'We are quietly confident she can run well.'
Snowden was hoping to get a maiden win on the board for Catonahotinroof at Canberra last start but things didn't go to plan when she missed the start by seven or eight lengths before finishing less than three lengths behind Celestial Breeze in fifth place.
'She just hopped up in the air as the gates opened and lost all chance,' Snowden said.
'She still ran a slashing race to finish as close as she did.'
The three-year-old was sent back to the trials where she came from last to beat Wonderstorm at Warwick Farm on May 26 and will make her presence felt in the Asahi Super Dry Plate (1300m).
'She trialled really well the other day. She handles the soft track without any problems,' said Snowden.
'That might play into her hands a little bit this week.
'She has been up a while but is still in good shape and certainly capable of running well.'
Snowden is happy with the way Earth Dance is coming along but said wants further than the 1600m of the Vinnie Three-Time Champion Sire Handicap.
'He will go to 1900 metres at his third start and will be better suited.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
13 minutes ago
- News.com.au
NSW Labor workers comp reform to be referred to inquiry despite pleas for urgency
Labor's controversial plan to reform workers compensation in NSW has suffered another blow after being referred to an inquiry, despite a plea by the Treasurer that it be urgently passed. The NSW government is attempting to pass amended plans to reform workers compensation before July 1, having faced significant opposition from the unions and the Opposition. Liberal leader Mark Speakman said the Coalition was in favour of reform to the beleaguered system, but only with key amendments – if not, they will seek to send it to an inquiry. The Opposition, in a bizarre alliance with the Greens and the unions, is seeking to stay plans to lift the threshold for a permanent whole person impairment (WPI) to 31 per cent. Opponents of the planned changes say they would lock most claimants suffering a psychological injury out of support; the government says it offers greater access to lump sum payments. Appearing before the Legislative Council, shadow treasury spokesperson Damien Tudehop moved that the bill be referred to the Public Accountability and Works Committee for inquiry in August. Instead, an amended version of the motion put forward by independent MLC Mark Latham was approved by the Council, which set that the committee would determine its own reporting date. 'It is incumbent upon the Treasurer to at least demonstrate … the manner in which this scheme is currently operating and why the savings, which have been identified for the scheme, are acting or potentially acting to target people who are the most vulnerable in terms of psychological injury which they have suffered,' Mr Tudehop said. Mr Tudehope went on to add: 'There are other areas of the manner in which the scheme is being managed at the moment, which can produce savings. There are significant savings identified in the act, which in fact we will be wholeheartedly endorsing'. During his address, Mr Tudehope said he was 'not here to hold up the process', but that the Opposition had not had enough time to properly assess the plan. In response, Treasurer Daniel Moohley said delaying the bill by referring it to an inquiry would be an 'opportunity that we miss' to begin repairing the 'broken' system. 'The opportunity we will miss is to begin to provide for injured workers,' he said. 'Absent reform, a small business that has no claims rejected is facing the prospect of a 12 per cent increase next year, followed by a further 12 per cent, followed by a further 12 per cent. 'The bigger opportunity that we've been missing is to begin to build a proper culture of prevention when it comes to psychological injury. 'That is crucial to stopping people from getting injured in the first place and at the same time making sure that we have a workers compensation system that complements the task of returning people to their health and returning people to their work.' In four weeks time, Mr Moohkey warned the system would 'fall back even further' and make reform harder, including the private sector which he said was suffering $5m losses per day. He instead urged for the Opposition to 'make this decision today' and put their amendments up for debate, rather than referring the workers compensation bill to an inquiry. Greens MLC Abigail Boyd supported the Opposition's motion, stating that the bill, if passed, 'could cause so much distress to people who are already at their most vulnerable that they may choose to end their lives. 'A bill that is literally about life and death. 'That's why we should never seek to pass a bill like this in these circumstances, with the secrecy, the deception, the blatant mistruths that we've been told over the last three months, and with the government having failed to make out the case for what they have decided to do.' She urged Labor MLCs supporting the bill to consider whether it was 'this reform that has been never recommended in any of the multiple, multiple reports or inquiries into the workers compensation system, that has been sprung on you with very little warning. 'Are you personally satisfied that the only option, the only option is to implement these reforms? The most cruel and dangerous of all of the possibilities.' She went on to add: 'I don't think any Labour member can honestly say that they thought two years ago they would now be sitting here trying to defend a bill that will kill workers.' The proposed workers compensation reform has faced stiff opposition from the state's unions, as well as a parliamentary inquiry, and competing claims about urgency. The state government says the reforms need to be passed before July 1, while the Opposition says premiums for the nominal insurer are already locked for next year. Mr Moohkey previously indicated he would not authorise further payments to the Treasury Managed Fund, the government's self-insurer, following billions in cash injections. The plan also seeks to address the state of the nominal insurer, the health of which has resulted in rising premiums for businesses and charities operating in the state, Mr Moohkey said failure of the bill had already been factored into the state budget,
ABC News
19 minutes ago
- ABC News
Liberals hose down Alan Stockdale's women comment while parliament achieves parity
Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House. Senior blokes in the Liberal Party have long had an issue reading the room. Just look to the last two federal elections to see the extent of the damage wreaked on the party. Enter Alan Stockdale, whose biggest party sin until recently was that he's a Victorian. A former state government treasurer, he was brought in as an external administrator to run the far from thriving NSW division of the Liberal Party despite coming from south of the Murray River. You'll remember just how high performing the NSW division is. It's the one that failed to nominate candidates for council elections (talk about literally only having one job to do). Addressing the NSW Liberal Women's Council on Tuesday he said that women were "sufficiently assertive" and the party might need to "protect men's involvement". Even if he thought it was a hilarious joke, no one was laughing. The comments were made during a discussion about female representation and gender quotas. It's worth remembering that the once mighty Liberal Party managed to just get just six MPs elected to NSW's 46 federal seats last month. NSW voters also elected six crossbenchers, five of whom are women, including the newly victorious independent Nicolette Boele who joins Sophie Scamps, Allegra Spender and Zali Stegall in once-safe Liberal seats in Sydney. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald just days after the Liberals were repudiated at the ballot box, Charlotte Mortlock (a former adviser and founder of a group tasked with bolstering female representation in the party) wrote that without reform the party would remain "beholden to a smaller and smaller cohort of angry men, blinded by their own ideology, so detached from reality that we will never be in power again". She argued that the Liberal Party had its highest calibre of female candidates at the last election but the issue was they were "forced to sell a shit sandwich". In a sign that at least some leaders in the Liberal Party are reading the room, federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley (one of just two Liberal women elected in NSW) was quick to condemn Stockdale's comments, arguing she wanted more assertive women in her ranks. State Opposition Leader Mark Speakman offered a similar sentiment on ABC Radio Sydney on Thursday morning. "Honestly, Alan, read the room," Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie told the Today Show. "It was a shocking comment. I think it's time for Alan to head back to the Melbourne Club, have a stiff whiskey and chat with the old boys about what went wrong." Just when Liberals thought things couldn't get much worse, their only glimmer of hope from the May 3 election was snuffed out. Liberal Gisele Kapterian initially won Bradfield by eight votes after the full distribution of preferences. But given it was under 100 votes, a full recount was required. More than a month on from polling day, the recount ended with Boele winning by 26 votes. It's certainly not without precedent that the victor would change after a recount. In 2007, Labor candidate Rob McEwen beat incumbent Liberal Fran Bailey by a handful of votes in the Victorian seat of McEwen. After a recount, Bailey was ahead by 12. Labor and McEwen took the case to the Court of Disputed Returns, challenging the validity of some of the 643 invalid votes. Sadly, the judgement from the case, in which all 643 votes were re-scrutinised, is far less dramatic than the scenes that played out in Selina Meyer's recount in HBO's Veep. In the end, Bailey's lead grew and she won the seat by 31 votes (Mitchell would comfortably win the seat three years later when Bailey retired). In 2016, the LNP considered challenging Labor's 37 vote victory in the Queensland seat of Herbert, but the party ultimately decided against it. Kapterian and the Liberals say they're considering a challenge in Bradfield but it's too early to know what their decision will be. There are no shortage of people who see Kapterian as the future of the party. She's modern, the daughter of migrants and has worked at senior levels of politics and tech. It's for the same reason that Ley rewarded Kapterian with a junior portfolio in the outer frontbench, a move the leader said was to reward once safe Liberal seats for sticking with the party. Like Mitchell before her, if she is to be the future of the party, she'll likely have to wait three more years to have another crack. There's always an old quote that comes back to haunt politicians. A week ago, then Greens senator Dorinda Cox insisted Labor's contentious extension of the north west shelf gas project was a climate bomb that "must not go ahead". A week later, the now Labor Senator Cox insisted "it wouldn't be suitable for me to have public commentary during that stage". When Fatima Payman quit Labor, no shortage of party leaders insisted she should quit parliament (which of course they would because they would pick her replacement). There were no such calls coming from Labor when its ranks were bolstered by Cox's defection. Beyond all the noise that has surrounded the defection (not to mention no shortage of internal matter bubbling over publicly), it highlights the growing pains the Greens have experienced in recent years. After the 2022 election, the party reached a high-water mark of four MPs and 12 senators. Today, it has just one MP and 10 senators. The Cox defection also brings with it risks for Labor, even if the PM insists all internal matters in the senator's office have been dealt with. Any issues now will be for him and Labor to explain. But in not going to the crossbench, Cox's move keeps the Senate maths simple. Labor only needs the Coalition or the Greens to pass legislation. If Cox had become and independent, Albanese would have needed the Greens and one crossbencher to pass legislation. Cox's defection takes the Labor caucus to 123 politicians, comfortably more than double the Liberal partyroom of 51. Add in the 19 Nats and the official opposition will have 70 members. The new-look parliament will have 40 new politicians and will have gender parity for the first time, with 113 women and 113 men across the House of Representatives and Senate. It will also be the most culturally diverse parliament. Queensland is the only state where the Coalition has more MPs than Labor — 16 to 12. Labor will hold four of the six seats where the winner had a two-candidate preferred margin above 70 per cent. Of the six seats with a winner on 69 per cent, Labor holds four of them. At the other end of the spectrum, seven seats have a winner on a margin between 50 and 50.7 per cent. Teal independents hold three of them, Labor holds three and the LNP one. Go out a little further and Labor holds six of the seven seats with a winner on 51 per cent. Within the parties, Labor is 57 per cent female, the Liberals 33 per cent, the Nationals 26 per cent and the Greens 63 per cent. Both Coalition parties fare better with gender parity in the Senate (a chamber that is almost 57 per cent women) with the Nationals 50 per cent women and the Liberals at 48 per cent. Labor's ranks are almost two-thirds women in the Senate and the Greens on 60 per cent. The prime minister has taken to taunting the Liberal Party over female representation, noting he has more women with a name starting with A in the House of Representatives (10) than the Coalition does women MPs (9). And yet for all the talented women in Labor, the party can't find any to promote to its House of Representatives leadership. Talk about blokes being unable to read the room.
ABC News
32 minutes ago
- ABC News
Tas Parliament passes no-confidence motion in Jeremy Rockliff
Tasmania is now likely to hold a snap state election as parliament passes a no-confidence motion in premier Jeremy Rockliff on the Speaker's deciding vote.
