Well-known Queensland media man Nathan Exelby is a constant at the track and has all the inside information as we head into another big weekend of racing in the Sunshine State.
DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH ON JEWEL DAY
THE RICH Jewel raceday on the Gold Coast has only been around a short time, but already has shown itself to be an event capable of throwing up a rough result.
The standout was ROTHFIRE’s defeat at the hands of KISUKANO two years ago in the $500,000 2YO Jewel. Rothfire went to the post a $1.20 chance, but was bowled over by the Toowoomba filly, who has become a fixture on Jewel day.
Last year she started the $3 favourite in the 3YO Jewel, which is also worth $500,000, but failed to fire a shot in a race won by $15 chance Simply Fly. This year she runs in the new Military Rose Plate, for which she has been marked one of the early favourites with TAB.
Another Jewel upset came back in 2018 when Chris Munce’s BOOMSARA defied the odds to win the 2YO feature as a $31 chance.
But either side of the Rothfire upset, the favourites did the right thing by punters, with THE ODYSSEY successful in 2019 and SWEET DOLLY justifying the $1.50 quote to land the prize 12 months ago.
Now we have SHE’SGOTTHEBOOM out to become the next odds-on winner of the race.
Will she go the way of Rothfire or Sweet Dolly?
The Steve O’Dea and Matt Hoysted trained filly is two from two, having opened her account in expected style at a Doomben midweek meeting, before justifying her very short quote in the Prelude last time out at Toowoomba.
On that occasion the runner-up BURNISH GOLD challenged her early in the straight, but she knuckled down and came away to win comfortably at the end.
She’s entitled to be favourite, but for mine, it doesn’t look as clear cut as Sweet Dolly last year.
She’sgottheboom pretty much ran identical time to the boys on the same day and while the winner of that race, Capital Tower, is not here, the runner-up REFUEL is.
I thought Refuel’s effort first up in that race was excellent, particularly given Tony Gollan fleetingly had Golden Slipper ambitions for the winner, before turning him out and setting him for the Brisbane carnival.
Early markets with TAB have the filly at $1.95 and Refuel a $23 chance. The $5 place portion of that price is too tempting for me to ignore and I’ve played him on a 1x4 basis.
TIGER AND BOOM HEAD 3YO JEWEL
THE 3YO Jewel looks set to upstage the two-year-old division this year, with Group winners TIGER LEGEND (formerly Tiger Heart) and PRINCE OF BOOM heading betting charts.
Tiger Legend was sold after revelling in the mud to win the G3 Vo Rogue Plate on New Year’s Day.
He’s trialled well enough in Sydney and trainer Les Bridge is looking to give the new connections a quick return on their $650,000 investment on Saturday.
But Prince Of Boom looks a formidable rival here.
He was down on his best in two spring runs before it was discovered he needed throat surgery.
The operation has seemingly done the trick, as Prince Of Boom was panels above his rivals in the Prelude at Toowoomba, crossing from a wide gate and then putting them to the sword in the straight.
It was the type of performance that saw him regarded as one of Queensland’s best two-year-olds last season, where he was a dominant winner of the Group 2 Spirit Of Boom (Champagne) Classic.
From a good gate, he will sit on speed here and presumably enjoy a comfortable run in transit.
He looks hard to beat.
The other chances in the race come from the O’Dea-Hoysted camp.
BIRRIECART is unbeaten in three runs, the latter where he beat Tiger Heart in a deceptive photo finish. He’s had a couple of trials and looked the part in the latest.
Stablemate ENTERPRISE POMME made a winning debut for her new trainers just over a month ago and warmed up for this with an impressive trial at Doomben on Tuesday.
CRACKING CARD AT GOLD COAST
RACING QUEENSLAND has beefed up this program with the aforementioned Military Rose Plate and the $150,000 Gold Jewel Quality, which now sit aside the Gold Coast Stakes (1800m) as support races on the card.
The acceptances suggest this is going to be a fantastic betting meeting and the forecast this week means the track should be in perfect order come Saturday.
The Gold Jewel rounds out the card and punters will pick out a few of these to back.
SAFEWORK interests me. For a long time he was a non-winner, but as trainer Scott Morrisey pointed out some weeks back, he’s a horse that has tended to have bad luck in his races.
That was typified on Magic Millions day where he may well have made things very interesting with WISDOM OF WATER in the $1M QTIS race had he found clear running.
Subsequent to that, he’s posted two impressive wins and though he steps up in grade here, the MM day performance shows he’s well and truly up to a race like this and I’m happy to play at the early $9.50 quote.
BEST BETS
- Prince Of Boom: Race 8 - $3.20
- Remlap’s Gem: Race 5 - $2.70
- Irukandji: Race 3 - $5