Victoria’s champion trainer Darren Weir will make a late call if favourite Black Heart Bart will take his place in the field for the Group 1 $700,000 Darley Kingsford-Smith Cup (1300m) at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
Black Heart Bart, above, is not certain to run on a heavy track in the Kingsford-Smith Cup at Eagle Farm. Photo by Ultimate Racing Photos.
A report form Weir’s track walking expert Peter Ellis will determine if Black Heart Bart will back up this week at Eagle Farm following is first up seventh to Vega Magic in the Group 1 $1m Darley Goodwood (1200m) at Morphettville last Saturday.
Eagle Farm was rated a heavy 8 on Friday morning and Weir said that Ellis will have a look at the track later today and a decision will be made on Saturday morning if Black Heart Bart runs.
“A heavy ground would definitely be a concern to us,” Weir told RSN’s Racing Pulse.
“Peter Ellis is on his way up there now to walk the track this afternoon to give it an opinion of what he thinks and obvious if we should be running or not.”
“I have never looked at it and I can’t comment but that is obviously the reason that we have Pete going up there today to see whether we should be running and whether it is a genuine heavy or the conditions that they are.”
“We are keen to run but if the conditions are in the heavy range and if he reckons it is not going to change, it might change our opinion of running.”
Black Heart Bart has no winning wet track form with all his sixteen victories being on a good rated surface, which includes his five Group 1 wins.
The 2016 Goodwood was the first of Black Heart Bart’s five Group 1 wins before he went on to win four at Caulfield, the $500,000 Underwood Stakes (1800m) and the $600,000 Ladbrokes Caulfield Stakes (2000m) in the Spring and the $500,000 Ladbrokes C.F. Orr Stakes (1400m) and the $500,000 Futurity Stakes (1400m) during this year’s Autumn Carnival.
The Blackfriars gelding has had one go at racing on the Eagle Farm track when beaten a nose by Under The Louvre in the last year’s Group 1 $1.5m AAMI Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) on the opening day of the new reconstructed course proper.
Regular rider Brad Rawiller takes the mount again on Black Heart Bart who has drawn nicely at barrier four in the Kingsford-Smith Cup field that has already been reduced to thirteen runners following the scratching of the Bjorn Baker trained Egyptian Symbol.
Betting for the Kingsford-Smith Cup at Ladbrokes.com.au has Black Heart Bart as the $3.40 favourite ahead of the Chris Waller trained Counterattack and Lindsay Park’s three year old Derryn who are both marked at $6.
