Not many large fields for Saturday racing in Adelaide. They may be short early with more value later in the card.
You just have to ignore the first up run of Jade's Boy at Moonee Valley and accept that this is an easier assignment for the colt.
Robert Smerdon often brings younger horses to Adelaide for confidence and gets the metropolitan win on the board for them. That appears very possible here for the son of Encosta De Lago.
The other important factor is that he has a race over 1200m as compared to the shorter race he contested in Melbourne where he was slowly out and run off his feet. That won’t happen here you’d expect.
Second up last campaign he won by racing on the speed and he could just as well use those tactics again for success.
Value runner of the day could be Usurper who runs in a 0-72 event where she seems reasonably placed.
Mick Price is another Victorian trainer who targets these races to gain prizemoney for horses just off that level in Melbourne. He has a big team in at Morphettville this weekend and this mare is fit now third up as well.
In her first two preparations third up she was placed behind Bass Strait at Sandown and then last time was five lengths back in a $100K race at Caulfield.
Can see her rolling forward here and taking up a position not far from the speed. From there she should run well.
Whitlam will have admirers in Race 7 seeing that he is down off a succession of stronger races than this including two Listed races and an Open Flying Handicap.
The trouble for him is, he goes up strongly in the weights but more critically, he’s over 1200m whereas his best form is at 1100m.
Since arriving in SA, his better runs have come at the shorter trip and so might be worth taking on in a competitive race.
SAY FROM SA
BANKER: Race 3 #2 Jade's Boy @ $4
PLAY OF THE DAY: Race 5 #9 Usurper @ $8
LAY OF THE DAY: Race 7 #1 Whitlam @ $4
