PAUL Messara may have made the right choice when he opted to bypass last Saturday’s Randwick meeting and run exciting three-year-old Caerless Choice in this Sunday’s $100,000 Corey’s Catering Tamworth Cup (1400m).
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Caerless Choice would have had to run on a Heavy 8 at Randwick, so the Scone trainer opted to keep him at home and wait for a good track at Tamworth.
That Caerless Choice won a Country Championship Qualifier at Scone before finishing fourth to Free Standing in the $400,000 Country Championship Final (1400m) on Heavy 8 surfaces belies the gelding son of Redoute’s Choice’s ability.
Also Chrysolaus, who was sixth in last year’s Country Championship Final to Clearly Innocent, shows that form is sound after the grey gelding, trained by Jane Clement at the time, won last year’s Tamworth Cup.
Caerless Choice isn’t the only Country Championship horse nominated for Sunday’s Tamworth Cup either.
Fellow Scone gelding, After All That, is also one of the 41 Cup nominations.
Trained by Rod Northam After All That was second to Free Standing in the Country Championship Final and is one of two Northam entries, joined by Hot Vinni.
Shotgun Roulette, trained by Wayne Wilkes at Taree, also ran in the Country Championship Final, finishing ninth, while Tamworth-trained Mapmaker was close up in both Scone Country Championship Qualifier (fifth) and Wild Card (fourth).
Tamworth Jockey Club general manager Damon Sullivan believes the Country Championship horses add extra spice to the Cup.
“Caerless Choice ran well in that Country Championship Final,” Sullivan said.
“Mapmaker has been racing well in the Country Championships too and will have to be a contender on that form.
“It’s great the Country Championship horses have something else to aim at instead of being spelled.”
The TJC is also running the $50,000 FSDP John Clift Memorial Benchmark 70 Showcase Sprint (1000m) but it won’t be from the new 1000m chute.
“We won’t be starting from the new chute,” Damon Sullivan confirmed.
“The new and old grass hasn’t knitted as well as we’d have liked.”
The 1000m feature sprint, a key part of what promises to be a bumper eight-race Tamworth Cup Day program will instead be run from the normal start.