War Eternal and Highlights to line up Saturday as Bjorn Baker looks to Winx Stakes with top seeds
Baker, who is in Europe, nominated five horses for the spring tune-up with Group 1 Sydney Cup hero Arapaho – allocated a monster topweight of 65kg – a surprise addition to nominations.
But if everything goes to plan, the smart stayer will line up over 1000m on Friday morning in a rescheduled Rosehill barrier trial before focusing on the Winx.
Group 2 winning stablemate Robusto was down to run in last Saturday's Group 2 Missile Stakes but will now head straight to Saturday week's Winx Stakes after being lumped with 62.5kg in the Spring Preview.
' Highlights and War Eternal will go to the Spring Preview and while we were keen to run Robusto, we didn't expect him to get that much weight,' Baker's racing manager Luke Hilton said.
'With us wanting to back-up and run him in the Winx Stakes, to run him there with 62.5kg on a heavy track especially over 1400m and then back him up a week later (would have been too much).
'The Missile over 1200m would have been ideal leading in but unfortunately that didn't pan out.
'It's (the Spring Preview) a bit of a back up option for Arapaho just to see what happens but the plan is to trial him on Friday.'
• Adelaide River out as Lees prays for smooth Sailing at Kensington
Group 3 -winning stayer Our Anchorage was also nominated for the Spring Preview but will kick off his campaign in Thursday week's Listed $200,000 Rowley Mile (1600m) at Hawkesbury.
It leaves War Eternal and Highlights to fly the flag for the Baker stable in the Spring Preview with both horses poised to make their presence felt third-up from a break.
'War Eternal has been crying out for the 1400m and is ready to peak. He has a great third-up record as well and so does Highlights,' Hilton said.
The Group 1 Winx Stakes (1400m) will take centre stage the following week at Royal Randwick with Robusto ($26) and Arapaho ($51) both outside chances to give Baker his second victory in the feature.
A robust win to Robusto!
A thrilling battle in the Listed Winter Challenge, with the @BBakerRacing galloper victorious! â›'ï¸�
@JoshuaParr8 @Darby_Racing @aus_turf_club pic.twitter.com/aHKJRkQjfq
— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) July 19, 2025
Meanwhile, nominations were extended for the Listed $200,000 The Rosebud (1100m) on Saturday's card with three new entries entered.
The Annabel and Rob Archibald -trained Peleus ($26) as well as Kris Lees duo Cantiamo and Wisnierska ($34) joined the nominations.
Cantiamo was installed as a $6 chance in betting for but Lees said it was highly unlikely she would run with the filly set to return at Randwick Kensington on Wednesday, provided there was no overnight rain.
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