Some advice from fellow trainers has swayed Daniel Bowman into giving Begood Toya Mother his chance in the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield.
Bowman had Begood Toya Mother entered for three races on Saturday – a stakes race in Adelaide as well as a handicap and the weight-for-age Memsie Stakes at Caulfield – all over 1400m.
With the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes at Caulfield on September 21 a spring target, Bowman was mindful of protecting the gelding’s handicap for that race.
After a track gallop on Tuesday, Bowman spent the afternoon tossing up which way to go before settling on Begood Toya Mother’s first shot at Group One company.
“I spoke to a couple of trainers whose opinions I value and they said you can look after him all you want, but you might wake up next week and he’s sick or something,” Bowman said.
“The opportunity is there now, if you don’t take it, you might regret it.”
Bowman said the smaller field, against 12 opponents, opposed to the capacity field in the handicap, also swayed the decision in favour of the Memsie Stakes.
“There’s probably only four or five that are ready to win, whereas in the handicap, you just don’t know what you’re going to get,” Bowman said.
“I just thought in a field of 13 it might be an easier run and my gut feeling is he is still six to 12 months away from being a weight-for-age horse.
“But I’d rather find out that I’m wrong by running rather than running him in the handicap and blowing them away and then Sunday morning waking up and say we should have run.”
While most trainers are concerned with wide draws in feature races, Bowman thinks the outside barrier won’t be any disadvantage for Begood Toya Mother.
Bowman said if Begood Toya Mother was drawn drawn inside he would need to be used early to hold a forward position.
“This way we can give him a dig and get him to go forward and if they want to go silly we can take a sit,” Bowman said.
“He doesn’t have to lead, he’s just led via circumstance at his past two.”
Early markets have Begood Toya Mother sharing the third line of betting with Ladbrokes at $8 with Hartnell whose Godolphin stablemate Alizee is the $3.30 favourite ahead of Scales Of Justice at $5.
