The weather will play a major role in trainer Tony Sears’ final call on running both Pillar Of Creation and Choice Bro in the Listed Eye Liner Stakes at Ipswich.
A classy field of sprinters will contest Saturday’s $175,000 race over 1350m with showers forecast all week.
Pillar Of Creation and Choice Bro both raced well in the early part of the winter carnival and have been freshened since their last starts.
Choice Bro won the Weetwood Handicap at Toowoomba on April 16 with Pillar Of Creation third and they have had only one run since when both were well beaten in the Prime Minister’s Cup at the Gold Coast on May 7.
Sears admitted he deliberately kept the pair back for the last part of the carnival.
“They have both been racing well but I didn’t think they would be up to some of the better races against the southern horses,” he said.
“However, the weather will dictate if they both run. If we get any rain Choice Bro will head to Rockhampton for the Newmarket and then possibly push on further north to the Cleveland Bay Handicap at Townsville.
“And of course the wetter the better for Pillar Of Creation.”
Brad Pengelly will ride Pillar Of Creation and James Orman has been booked for Choice Bro.
Melbourne trainer Darren Weir has called on John Allen to ride topweight Puccini in the Listed Ipswich Cup (2100m) which has 11 runners.
Allen is better known as a jumps jockey but is also adept on the flat which he proved when he won the South Australian Derby on the Weir-trained Howard Be Thy Name.
Puccini, a New Zealand Derby winner, will back up from an eighth in Saturday’s Brisbane Cup.
The meeting will celebrate the 150th Ipswich Cup, a race first run in 1866 and won by Jibboom.
