John O’Shea is confident he has the right horse to win Saturday’s $3 million Magic Millions 3yo Guineas but admits the wide draw has made things difficult as he steps up sharply in class.
Unbeaten in three starts, the $300,000 yearling was able to cross and sit outside the leader from a wide gate at Randwick in a benchmark 72 last start but O’Shea would’ve loved a kinder barrier in a full field of 18 with Sydney Bowler likely to jump from barrier 13 if the emergencies fail to get a run.
“We’re pretty happy with him, we were very disappointed with the barrier draw so we’re going to have to see how the track plays and hopefully Jason (Collett) can give him a decent run in the race,” O’Shea said.
Aware that the son of Deep Field is making a big leap in grade given the two favourites, Chrysaor and Cifrado, are both Group 2 winners, O’Shea would like to see Sydney Bowler settle near the speed and have first run.
“I would sooner be in a forward position, I think that’s our advantage over the two other favourites in the race, they’ve got racing patterns, they need luck from their draw whereas his racing pattern is such that he can take a spot and alleviate a lot of traffic,” O’Shea said.
“It’s a lovely race for him, I was hoping to draw well because I thought his racing pattern would be an advantage on the way the track played last Saturday but it may turn around anyway because they’re predicting rain throughout the week and it might be completely different,” O’Shea said.
Despite the barrier draw and class jump, Sydney Bowler has been well fancied for the Magic Millions, sitting as a $5.50 equal second elect with Cifrado with last start winning jockey Jason Collett to make the trip up.
“He’s a new form line but he’s coming out of 64 grade, coming out and taking on open company is very different, I was hoping that we could draw a good gate so that we could get a march on them.”
