Leading Perth owner Bob Peters has two of the leading chances as he shoots for a record tenth victory in the Perth Cup.
Grant and Alana Williams will saddle up TAB’s $3.60 favourite Midnight Blue along with $4.60 second elect Pure Devotion in the Group 2 race over 2400m at Ascot on Saturday.
Market đź’°: View the Odds for the Perth Cup
Victory on Saturday would complete a clean sweep of the major races after Peters and the Williams’ won all three Group 1 races earlier in the Perth Summer Carnival.
“I’m fairly sure we won’t be able to do what we have done over the last month again,” Peters told RSN.
“Everyone’s home Cup is a special race to them, no matter where you are.
“I think one of the most popular races in this state is the Broome Cup, then there’s the Kalgoorlie, the Bunbury, everyone wants to win their hometown Cup.”
Midnight Blue was a last start third to Stafford’s Lad and Pure Devotion over 2200m at Ascot on December 22 with some questioning whether the five-year-old ran the trip out.
Peters dismissed those suggestions pointing out that Midnight Blue had suffered a stone bruise, had missed some work along with a race in the lead-up.
“And I wouldn’t be concerned about him from a pedigree point of view,” Peters said.
“He’s by So You Think out of a Zabeel mare from a family that produces stayers.
“With Pure Devotion, we hoped she would come through to it, improve a bit from where she was, and she has done that.
“But he drops 4 kilos (from his last start) and the other two they drop one, so he meets them three kilos better and he wasn’t beaten by much.
“And he’d had the problem.”
While Peters owns the top two fancies in the race, he said any race at Group 1 and Group 2 level was always difficult to win.
