By Glenn Davis
Snitz lost none of his admirers for his upcoming assignment in next month’s $1.3m The Kosciuszko in Sydney with a first-up placing at Doomben on Saturday.
Trainer Matt Dunn had penciled in the Simon George Sells Strawberries Open Handicap (1200m) as the only lead-up to The Kosciuszko for Snitz who was having his first start since failing in the G3 Fred Best (1350m) at Doomben in May.
Dunn also will run Care To Think in The Kosciuszko at Randwick on October 13.
Ridden by Michael Cahill, who was a late replacement for the indisposed Ryan Maloney, Snitz put in a brave effort to finish third.
“It was a good run. I had to leave something in the tank as his grand final is not for another two weeks,” Dunn said.
“In hindsight, we probably should have ridden him a little softer as that’s how he’ll race in two weeks.”
The race was won by rejuvenated sprinter Fiery Heights who held off the fast finishing Taillevent to score by a half head with Snitz, a similar margin away.
Trainer Barry Lockwood was delighted to see Fiery Heights back in the winner’s stall for the eighth time in his career.
“It was a good win with a heavy weight and he didn’t have much trouble finding the fence off his wide draw,” Lockwood said.
Fiery Heights was formerly trained by Toby Edmonds at the Gold Coast before transferring to Lockwood at the start of the year.
His win took his record for Lockwood to two wins and two seconds from four starts.
Lockwood said Fiery Heights was becoming difficult to place after being forced to abort a Sydney trip this week.
“I was thinking of taking him to Sydney to run today but there was a bit of a mess up with his gallops,” he said.
“He had to have his main gallop on Tuesday instead of last Saturday which wasn’t ideal.”
Lockwood said Fiery Heights would continue towards the Brisbane summer carnival.
“I’ll just poke along with him but he’s a bit hard to place now,” he said.
“He needs to find a suitable race where he can get down in the weights so the summer carnival is the plan.”
Racing Queensland webnews September 29