Waller philosophical about Cup barriers

Wednesday 16 October 2013, 5:37pm

Chris Waller was the Caulfield Cup trainer with the most to win but even more to lose at Wednesday's barrier draw for the $2.5 million race.

In the end, he has no cause for complaint despite admitting he was thinking the worst for top fancy Hawkspur, Oaks-winning mare Royal Descent and his remaining runners Moriarty and Kelinni.

Just as he has two of the favourites in Hawkspur and Royal Descent and two of the outsiders with Moriarty and Kelinni, the barrier draw has also ensured his quartet is divided into pairs.

Kelinni has the rails with Royal Descent in gate three while further out Hawkspur has stall 16 and Moriarty barrier 18.

"I think, overall, the draw has worked out pretty well for us," Waller told AAP.

"When you are worrying about a barrier draw you think `what if they all draw bad'. Two of them did, which I've since seen positives from."

Uppermost in the thoughts of Waller - and backers of the long-time favourite Hawkspur - is the Queensland Derby winner's gate.

Jockey Jim Cassidy wanted to discuss the draw with Waller - but that was before the trainer thought it best to leave tactics up to the rider who is on the cusp of winning his 100th Group One race.

"I'm not going to interfere with what Jim wants to do," Waller said.

"He is the right horse who is tractable enough to be where he needs to be."

Which is a good thing for Cassidy who is chasing his third Caulfield Cup triumph 16 years after his first, which came with an all-the-way win on Might And Power.

"I don't worry about barrier draws because there's nothing I can do about them," Cassidy said.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »