Pentometer should get punters off to a winning start early on at Canterbury on Wednesday.
The Chris Waller-trained gelding lines up in the Cellarbrations Benchmark 74 Handicap (2800m).
It is a poor race where just two horses sit inside the handicap, Pentometer and Zataglio.
Topweight Pentometer gets the nod here after placing at Warwick Farm last start over 2400m.
The Pentire gelding stuck to his task well on that occasion for third where he beat Zataglio by 1.5 lengths.
A decent 11 horse field had assembled for that contest and he now lines up in a substantially weaker event.
There is just a 5kg spread at the weights in Race 2 at Canterbury on Wednesday where Pentometer (Benchmark 74) and Zataglio (Benchmark 70) take on five rivals with a Benchmark Handicap of 55 or less.
A strong case can be made for ruling a line between saddlecloth two and three and dismissing everything from the Gary Portelli-trained Unforgivable down.
It will be interesting to see how the race unfolds tactically between the two favourites.
There will be no early speed and watch for Pentometer and Zataglio to keep close tabs on each other.
Expect Pentometer and Jim Cassidy to gain the upper hand in the straight though with the UK import having performed well against decent company over the past 12 months.
Pentometer’s latest campaign has been underwhelming by his standards however that last start outing suggests the gelding is beginning to turn a corner.
The Northern Hemisphere five-year-old worked through his grades well during a prolonged campaign through the summer where he won three races and placed on another three occasions through seven starts.
This older form has him shaping as very hard to beat on Wednesday and again, emphasis must be placed on the fact he is seemingly working back up toward that mark based on his last start showing.
Zataglio was a convincing winner at Hawkesbury three starts back over 2000m however his two runs since have just been okay.
The gelding has race six times this campaign and returned a master Timeform rating of 86 when winning at Hawkesbury.
The five-year-old will at the very least need to run around that mark if he is to be fighting out the finish of this affair.
Pentometer returned a Timeform figure of 88 last start and having yielded a master Timeform rating of 95 last campaign, he does have room for improvement.
Expect to see it on Wednesday in the Cellarbrations Benchmark 74 Handicap (2800m).
