Prices with two Provincial Final hopes

Friday 7 April 2017, 5:24pm

A barrier mishap dashed Robert and Luke Price's hopes of three runners in the Provincial Championship Final at Randwick but the father and son training partnership is still poised to make an impact in the $400,000 race.

The Price stable has qualified two horses for Saturday's rich race restricted to provincial-trained horses, with Noble Joey winning the heat at Wyong in February while stablemate Budderoo Knight earned his ticket to the final with his second in the Hawkesbury heat on March 2.

The team had also hoped to qualify Leami Astray via the final heat at Newcastle last week but the mare was scratched after rearing in the barriers and becoming cast.

Luke Price said it was great to get two horses into the final, having set up a stable at Kembla Grange to go with the family property just outside of Nowra.

"It's just going to widen our prospects," Price said.

Noble Joey overcame a wide barrier to win at Wyong and has the outside barrier and top weight to contend with on Saturday.

"I think Noble Joey has got the best form in the whole race," Price said.

"He's been very consistent his whole career in genuine Saturday grade races.

"He puts himself on the speed and is tough.

"He's going to have to be really good tomorrow though with 59 kilos and an outside barrier to beat those horses who have only got 54 like Pomelo who is a mare I've seen a bit of at Kembla Grange.

"She's a mare on the way up, so it's going to be a good contest."

While Price said Noble Joey was tough and had the score on the board, Budderoo Knight was loaded with ability and the trainer expects he can run better than his odds of $35 suggest.

"I just think he raced with no luck until the heat the other day," Price said.

"He's loaded with ability and I really think he's a genuine chance.

"He'll just be in behind the speed and I think he's a really good each-way chance."

The Gwenda Markwell-trained Pomelo, who convincingly won the heat staged on the Golden Slipper program at Rosehill after being transferred from Gosford because of wet weather, is the $2.40 favourite.

"She has done everything right but I don't want to get ahead of myself," Markwell said.

"She has led every time and the 1400 metres at Royal Randwick is hard."

– 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 »