Peter Snowden will take 16 runners to Hawkesbury Race Club’s stand-alone meeting on Saturday with multiple chances in key feature races.
Photo by Racing and Sports
Out of the three stakes races on Saturday, Snowden has seven runners combined, as well as three taking part in the final of the Provincial Stayers Series worth $100,000.
No doubt Snowden will be pushing to win the 2013 Darley Crown with Quidunc (Kerrin McEvoy), Aerobatics (Christian Reith) and Forfeiture (Peter Robl).
With just one entry in the XXXX Gold Rowley Mile, Snowden has elected for McEvoy to take the reins on the Black Type (Listed winner) Euryale ($12 on TAB Fixed Odds).
“Snowden always has a great day here at Hawkesbury,” said Hawkesbury Race Club CEO Brian Fletcher this morning on Big Sports Breakfast.
“He’s got a terrific team here on Saturday and over the years he’s even trained four winners (in one day).”
Perhaps Snowden’s biggest chance is with three-year-old gelding Complicate in the $150,000 Listed Workers Blacktown Guineas (1400m). Complicate, a Canberra Guineas (Listed) winner is sitting on the first line of betting at $4 on TAB Fixed Odds.
The feature event of the eight-race program has a field of 10, which includes the Lisa Latta-trained Platinum Kingdom, winner of the Listed South Pacific Classic at Randwick.
Platinum Kingdom sits just below Complicate on TAB Fixed Odds ($4.60) with Latta intending to use the Guineas run to see if Platinum Kingdom will go to Brisbane.
Hawkesbury racecourse has undergone some major work recently, most notably a track upgrade which has seen the length of the straight increased to 400m – the same length of the straight at Randwick.
“Every thing’s in shape… we’ve taken the winning post south 120m, and we’ve probably got a metropolitan race standard track now,” Fletcher said.
“We’ve put lateral drains every two metres around the course which takes us up to that metropolitan standard even in the winter months.”
A recent test of the track confirmed the new grass has stood up to the rigours of racing, with several jockeys commenting on how impressed they were with the new surface.
The track at Hawkesbury is currently rated good 3 with the first race to get under way at 12.25pm.
