The Hunter has completely changed the landscape of spring racing in New South Wales and we are set for an enormous Saturday feature race at Newcastle.
With $1 million on offer, an outstanding and capacity field will assemble for the 1300m Quality and there is a case to be made for many horses in The Hunter market.
I’ve run the rule over the lot and my The Hunter tips can be found below.
Suggested Bets
- 4 Units straight out #3 Graff
- Boxed Trifecta of the selections below
If there is a horse that hasn’t lived up to the hype in the last twelve months for mine, it’s Graff, but surely this is the perfect feature race for him. So far this time in he’s placed third in the Group 3 Concorde and fourth in both the Group 2 Shorts and Group 2 Premiere, obviously all against horses that ran in The Everest. This is the Newcastle equivalent of The Everest, and I think that Graff could be the Newcastle equivalent of Yes Yes Yes.
I had an outstanding Cup Day around the Cup itself, and Tactical Advantage was probably my most satisfying winner. I was sure that he was ready to go second-up in the Caulfield Sprint and to be fair, he did record the best closing splits of anything on Caulfield Cup Day. As I had hoped, he way enormous down the straight at HQ and I think he’s only going to be better again on Saturday. I can’t get my head around the $14 in The Hunter betting and I’ll be having another go.
Kris Lees could saddle the first four home in The Hunter and boy, would it be great to see Le Romain in the finish again. There probably isn’t a tougher horse going around in Australia at the moment and his glittering career does not show signs of slowing, particularly if his smart first-up run for third behind Pierata and Trekking in the Redzel Stakes was anything to go by. Hugh Bowman takes the ride and the horse can simply never be counted out.
Savatiano returned a rare flat effort in the Empire Rose last time out, but I think that the drop back in trip and class into this race could make all the difference, and she is over the odds at around the $10 mark in The Hunter betting. The daughter of Street Cry has recorded seven wins and eleven minors from her twenty-six starts and resumed this time for fourth in the Group 2 Blazer, before winning the Group 2 Tristarc. She’s ready to peak fourth-up and while she might need a bit of luck from the wide draw, she’ll be ridden by J Mac.