While only four runners will face the starter in a Two-Year-Old Handicap over 1200m in the second race at Eagle Farm tomorrow … it remains a contest rich in interest with three of the four runners involved yet to have their colours lowered in race action.
The importance of the race in terms of being a stepping-stone towards the $2 million Magic Millions Two-Year-old Classic cannot be understated as these young contenders look to gain much needed experience while, at the same time, they will be pushing to raise the level of their respective reputations.
And James McDonald and Jamie Kah are not in town by coincidence.
Kah has the ride on the Peter and Paul Snowden trained Sovereign Fund who won the Wyong Magic Millions on debut just two weeks ago.
Amongst the beaten brigade that day was the Brad Widdup Fire Lane who came out next start to claim a win of her own at Randwick when upstaging the then unbeaten, much vaunted duo of the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott trained Platinum Jubilee and Empire Of Japan (another Team Snowden runner) who most thought would be involved in a two-horse battle for the honours.
That result franked Sovereign Fund’s Wyong winning effort in no uncertain terms.
It is fair to suggest that Sovereign Fund would have taken benefit from that run and his connections would be justified in going into Saturday’s race with a fair amount of confidence.
A point of interest here though is that James McDonald, who partnered Sovereign Fund in that Wyong win, will not be in Sovereign Fund’s corner this time. Instead, he will ride Sunsource for co-trainers Trent Busuttin & Natalie Young.
Like Sovereign Fund, Sunsource has only raced once, also for an impressive debut win … with his success coming in the Ballarat Magic Millions Two-Year-Old Classic when scoring by a clearcut 1.75 length margin.
Interestingly enough, neither Sovereign Fund nor Sunsource started favourite on debut … the former started at $6 while Sunsource was an $11 chance.
Having posted those results and with the small field on Saturday, their odds are understandably nowhere near that with Sovereign Fund currently quoted at $1.75 and Sunsource at $2.10.
The smaller the field … the bigger the upset.
You wouldn’t think so this time, but the Les Ross trained Mishani Renegade ($10) will also be defending an extended unbeaten record having posted three wins from three starts.
For his part, the Ryan Tyrell and Tom Button trained Risky Investment ($41) followed the trend of his opponents by winning on debut. He was nowhere near as good the next time out, but his follow-up to that, when finishing on the fringe of the placings behind Godfather in the Listed Phelan Ready Stakes was much better.
The race provides a big incentive for Risky Investment as he currently sits just outside the cut-off point for the final field for the $2 million Magic Millions Classic (which is determined by prize-money earnings), so a big result here would be a big result in more ways than one for the least fancied runner in the race.
Mishani Renegade, Sovereign Fund and Sunsource look to have already secured their places in the big race lineup.
