No Cup runners, but four leading fancies at Launceston for Star Thoroughbreds.
Denise Martin does not have a runner in the headline event on the Launceston Cup card, but Wednesday still has the potential to be a huge one for Star Thoroughbreds.
Martin’s famous purple and while colours will be sported by leading contenders in four races that flank the $250,000 Group 3 Cup, which is Race 9 at 5.29pm.
Sanniya is hot favourite for the day’s other Group 3, the Vamos Stakes (1400m), which will be run 35 minutes before the Cup, and follows Durazzo in the Listed Hellova Street Stakes (1600m) and Mazzini in the 3YO Classic (1200m), which does not carry Black Type but is worth $125,000.
Star Thoroughbreds and its Tasmanian trainer Barry Campbell also have Azonto in the 1200m benchmark 64 event that rounds out the card.
All four are battling it out for favouritism, with Sanniya and Mazzini odds-on for their events, but where Sanniya is shooting for five wins on end, Mazzini is looking to bounce back after having a four-race winning streak ended last start.
The three-year-old son of Needs Further finished fourth at $1.16 in the $75,000 Magic Millions 3&4YO Classic (1200m) on the Tasmanian Derby program on February 6, but Martin said a possible reason for that performance emerged in the days after the race.
“When Barry took him home that night the horse ate up, he was not unsound, he was well, but we had bloods taken on him on the Monday and his iron levels were a little bit down,” Martin said.
“He had whatever is the usual supplement that vets make sure horses for blood irregularities like that have and since that time he’s been really good.”
Mazzini is $1.90 for the 3YO Classic, in which he will jump from barrier two with Kelvin Sanderson to ride.
Craig Newitt is aboard Martin’s other three runners with Sanniya, a three-year-old daughter of Stratosphere who has won six of her seven starts, $1.55 for her first start beyond 1200m.
“Craig is adamant that she will run 1400 metres,” Martin said.
The team is also pleased to see Mazzini’s older brother Durazzo back at Launceston, where he has won seven of eight starts, as he strives to avenge his narrow defeat at the hands of Steparty in the Listed Thomas Lyons Stakes on February 8.
“He seems to enjoy Mowbray even more than Hobart and he loves 1600, so I think the owners are very keen for another contest with Steparty to see if he can turn it around.”
Durazzo and Steparty are just a field of six for the Hellova Street Stakes with Durazzo to start from the outside alley and Steparty gate four.
