Acrophobic's victory in Monday's Tamworth Cup Prelude was "quite an important" result for the four-year-old gelding and his trainer, Cody Morgan, as it cleared the path to a Tamworth Cup spot.
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Having drawn a start from barrier 10 in the sixth race of the day, Acrophobic began the race in a difficult position. But jockey Dylan Gibbons rode him "extremely well", Morgan said, until a win became distinctly possible.
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Acrophobic prevailed by the slimmest of margins - just a nose - over second-placed Morpheus, trained by Cameron Crockett.
"If Acrophobic didn't win the prelude, he wouldn't be going around in the [Tamworth] Cup," Morgan said.
"He wouldn't have gotten a start, so it was fairly important to get the result yesterday."
Though the Tamworth local has not yet confirmed which horses he hopes to run in the Tamworth Cup, which is scheduled for Friday, April 22, his big guns such as Edit, Wren's Day, Casino Seventeen, Kordia may "potentially" join Acrophobic on their home track.
Morgan expects the cup to be a highly competitive affair, as the $200,000 prize money pool usually draws some of the big names in metropolitan racing.
"You know that you're going to be racing Gai Waterhouse, Kris Lees, John O'Shea, which is great for country racing," he said.
"Harder for the locals to win, but you put the prize money on and they're gonna come."
But with the likes of Edit (one of the betting favourites for the recent Country Championship final), and Wren's Day (who finished a narrow second in the 2021 Tamworth Cup) among his stable, Morgan believes he has the potential to pull off an important victory.
"[Edit] didn't handle the wet track in Sydney and wasn't good enough on the day, but he'll get his chances [in Tamworth] for sure," he said.
"Casino Seventeen's probably had the best prep so far. The timing for him has been really good, and so has the timing for a horse like Wren's Day by missing the [Country Championships] final."
Morgan won the 2019 and 2020 Tamworth Cups with Unbiased and Ligulate respectively.
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