The Northern Queensland Winter Racing Carnival continues on Saturday with the Townsville Cup taking pride of place and with the Belle Of The Burdekin and the Townsville Guineas lining up as strong supporting feature races.
The Townsville Guineas presents the John Dann trained Illegal Justice with the opportunity to continue his fine run of form which has seen the son of Under The Louvre carry all before him so far since heading north for the Carnival.
Illegal Justice already has wins in the Rockhampton Guineas (over 1500m) and the Mackay Guineas (over 1560m) tucked safely away in the bank … so the on-going Guineas clean-sweep beckons, and it might take a really good performance from one of his rivals to deny the lightly raced, flying four-year-old (who has won three out of five starts) another victory, with the step up to 1609m on Saturday unlikely to bother him.
The Lachie Manzelmann trained Exodas might be the horse with the best shot at ending Illegal Justice’s dominance.
The son of Maurice finished three lengths behind the Dann trained runner at Rockhampton and a similar distance back at Mackay when finishing fourth and second respectively.
Three lengths is quite a significant margin to make up, and it remains to be seen whether the 2.5kg turnaround in the weights in favour of Exodas over Illegal Justice this time around will be enough to reverse the Mackay result.
Exodas might need more than that though … like a little bit of luck … as he will jump from a very wide draw in a full field, a factor which does complicate his task.
Illegal Justice has drawn barrier number five.
The Trevor and Peter Rowe trained Aspen Cowboy, like Illegal Justice, comes into the race looking to complete a hat-trick of wins and his claims are further bolstered by a sound record of five wins from only eleven starts.
He could be another genuine contender, although he has yet to race past 1400m or contest feature race company.
Others with claims are the Les Gordy trained British Gem … and the William Kropp trained Sweet Pretender.
British Gem won first time out at Townsville over 1400m after relocating from the Kris Lees stable down south. The daughter of Wootton Bassett could turn out to be a shrewd purchase … while Sweet Pretender, for her part, has finished second in three of her last four starts, all over 1625m, so clearly will be well suited to Saturday’s race distance.
