Trainer Lachie Manzelmann posted a warning on Thursday when his stable runner Red Hot Lizzie … a $101 chance … nearly blew the opposition out of the water, coming up just a stride short in the Rockhampton Newmarket, and he now has the Capricorn Guineas in his sights on Saturday, where he will send out the Maurice gelding Exodas, who will be looking to extend his winning sequence having won his last three starts in a row.
Exodas has raced twelve times, but only eight of those starts have been for Manzelmann after relocating from the Sunshine Coast to Manzelmann’s Mackay yard … and what a change of fortune that move has brought.
Exodas arrived at Manzelmann without having posted a win. Now, in eight starts for Manzelmann, Exodas has won six times from 1100m to 1560m, including a win in the $105 000 Northern Jewel QTIS Three-Year-Old Handicap, so he could hardly be doing anything more coming into the Capricorn Guineas.
If there is a point of concern, it is that all of those wins came at Exodas’s home base in McKay. On the two occasions he raced away from that comfort zone … in Cairns (where the heavy going could be an excuse) and in Townsville, he finished out of the placings.
Exodas, who will be ridden by Adam Sewell, is currently a $4.80 chance behind Enforceable ($3.20) and Illegal Justice ($3.60). Scialla, a $5.50 chance, rounds out the top four in the betting.
The Bevan Laming trained Enforceable was a last start winner over 1400m at the Gold Coast two weeks ago. The John Dann trained Illegal Justice is second-up having warmed up nicely enough with a third place finish at Doomben last time out … while the Garnett Taylor trained Scialla has never finished out of the first two places in all of her five starts. She has won two out of her three starts at Rockhampton.
