Gai Waterhouse and Chris Waller dominate Friday’s Listed $150,000 Wyong Gold Cup with seven of the 14 acceptors.
Waterhouse and Waller have won five of the last six Cups and this year’s edition could develop into an intriguing battle between the two powerhouse stables.
Travolta – Wyong Cup 2014
Four runners will represent Waterhouse and Waller has three acceptors.
Waterhouse’s four runners are Travolta (Tommy Berry), Queenstown (Tim Clark), Michelangelo (Tye Angland) and Laidback Larry (Adam Hyeronimus).
Waller has accepted with Brigantin (Glyn Schofield), Secessio (Hugh Bowman) and Multilateral (James McDonald).
Randwick trainer John Sargent has accepted with Iggi Pop but the Queensland Cup winner is also in at Randwick on Saturday as insurance.
“Accepting at Randwick is our back up plan,” Sargent said.
“The Wyong Cup is the one we are after and with Jim Byrne coming from Brisbane to ride him it is where we want to go.”
A win by the The John Thompson-trained Tremec, to be ridden by Brenton Avdulla, would add value to the six-year-old before he goes under the hammer at the Magic Millions Patinack Farm dispersal sale later this month.
Tremec won the Group Two Chairman’s Handicap at Randwick last year and finished second to The Offer in this year’s Chairman’s.
He resumed from a spell to run a good fourth behind Hoylonny over 1800m at Rosehill on August 18, is a winner second up and has wet track form.
Kerrin McEvoy will maintain his association with the Tony McEvoy-trained import Evangelist with the horse having only his third Australian start in the Cup.
Evangelist, the winner of four races from only 12 starts including three in England, made his Australian debut by winning over 1500m at Rosehill in July.
A month later he ran eighth to Hoylonny at Rosehill and has not started since.
