Cape Kidnappers and Miss Cover Girl will return to the Queensland winter carnival fray on Saturday week after missing the Gold Coast meeting because of wide barriers.
Trainer Kelly Schweida scratched Cape Kidnappers from Saturday’s Group Two Victory Stakes and Miss Cover Girl from the Group Three Gold Coast Guineas.
Cape Kidnappers – Damian Browne
Cape Kidnappers will now run in the Group One BTC Cup (1200m) and Miss Cover Girl in the Listed Mick Dittman Plate (1200m) on May 9.
The trainer said he had lengthy discussions with both sets of owners before withdrawing the horses.
“Both are fine. I just didn’t want to give them hard runs from wide barriers this early in the winter,” Schweida said.
“Cape Kidnappers only has a short campaign span anyway, so it was no major worry.”
“Miss Cover Girl would have had to go right back in the field or race wide. I didn’t want to give her a gut buster when our main aim is the Tatts Tiara on June 20.”
Earlier this month, the Brisbane trainer sent Miss Cover Girl on a successful hit-and-run mission to Sydney where she won the Group Three P J Bell (1200m) at Randwick.
Fellow trainer Chris Munce hopes to give two-year-old Wicked Intent a jump-out on Tuesday after the colt also missed running at the Gold Coast where he had been among the favourites for the Ken Russell Memorial (1200m).
Wicked Intent pulled a shoe on Saturday morning and lost a small piece of hoof.
“It is nothing overly serious and I didn’t want to risk him. Hopefully, he will be OK for the jump-out on Tuesday and then I will run him in the Champagne Stakes at Doomben on Saturday week,” Munce said.
Munce was happy with the run of Perplexity who finished fourth in the Chairman’s Hcp (2200m).
“He got further back than we wanted and then he made a long deep run. It was a good effort and we will probably press on into the winter,” Munce added.
