They have already enjoyed a great Summer Racing Carnival, and now the training partnership of Grant and Alana Williams are looking to claim another Group 1 success in Saturday’s $1.5 million Group 1 Northerly Stakes … a race in which they have lined up a three-pronged attack in their quest for more Group 1 glory.
It was just two weeks ago when the Williams team saddled the quinella in the Group 1 Railway Stakes and their two heroes of that day … Watch Me Rock and Western Empire … are back to flex their muscles again in the Northerly.
They bring a formidable presence to the race.
Watch Me Rock, the Railway Stakes winner, is no less than an eleven-time winner from only nineteen starts. He will be bidding for a third successive win here, having won the Group 3 Asian Beau Stakes in the run before his Railway Stakes success.
The Asian Beau Stakes was over 1400m. The Railway Stakes was over 1600m … and now Watch Me Rock is asked to extend that distance test once again and stretch out to 1800m.
Distance-wise, it certainly looks to be a task well within his capability, but he will have to deal with a curve ball at the weights compared to his last start which has to make his task that much more difficult … namely that, amongst others, he will meet his stable-mate Western Empire on 4kg worse terms than when they met in the Railway.
That is a significant pull at the weights in Western Empire’s favour, particularly as he was only beaten by 0.75 lengths in the Railway.
That obviously suggests that Western Empire could reverse the result with Watch Me Rock this time around, but both of these runners remain genuine contenders.
Hemlock Stone completes the Grant and Alana Williams line-up. He has finished unplaced in Group 2 and Group 3 company in his two starts since resuming following a three-and-a-half month break from race action, but both of those efforts were over 1400m … a distance well short of his best, as shown by the fact that he was the winner of the Perth Cup over 2400m at the start of the year.
With improving fitness and tackling a more preferable distance than he raced over recently, he is not out of it.
With Willie Pike, who partnered Watch Me Rock to victory in the Railway, electing to ride the unbeaten race favourite King Of Light, Nash Rawiller takes the reins aboard Watch Me Rock on Saturday … Billy Egan stays aboard Western Empire and Austin Galati rides Hemlock Stone.
