Red Excitement and Harper's Choice will front up against Winx
For the second time this preparation, stablemates Red Excitement and Harper’s Choice will front up against Winx, this time over the Randwick 1600 metres in the Chelmsford Stakes.
Trainer Gerald Ryan confirmed the pair would run in the Group Two race on Saturday but said his Tramway Stakes entrants, Deploy and Washington Heights, would not run in that race.
Red Excitement finished fourth in the Warwick Stakes won by Winx while ATC Australian Derby runner-up Harper’s Choice was seventh of the eight runners.
‘They have to get the miles in their legs and there are no other races to run them in,” Ryan said.
“They can’t beat Winx but you can’t run away from one horse either.”
The stablemates are at $51 in the TAB’s first market with every horse bar Winx in double figures.
The mare is $1.06 and if she stays at that price it will be the shortest she has started in her career.
Her Chris Waller-trained stablemate Foxplay is second elect at $15 but is unlikely to run with the Memsie at Caulfield and the Tramway at Randwick her other options.
After Winx blew the start in the Warwick Stakes, she had to call on all her champion qualities to run Foxplay down.
Third in the race was Ecuador who is among the 18 nominations for the Tramway (1400m) and the horse Ryan cites as the reason Deploy and Washington Heights won’t be there.
“Under the set weights and penalties Washington Heights has to carry the same weight, 55 kilos, as Ecuador who is a Group One placegetter and Deploy has to give him weight,” Ryan said.
“So Washington Heights will go to the Benchmark 95 on Saturday and Deploy will wait a week for the Theo Marks which is a quality handicap.”
Tom Melbourne, Sense Of Occasion and Zanbagh have been dually nominated for both the Chelmsford and the Tramway.
