King Of The Gauls winning the Listed In Full Flight Handicap (Candiese Lenferna)
Tony Rivalland thinks highly of his Vercingetorix three-year-old sprinter King Of The Gauls, who is officially merit rated 101 after his Listed In Full Flight Stakes win, but due to the structure of the weights as the race stands he might bypass the Gr 1 Golden Horse Sprint.
He said, “He is certainly well, but I think we might bypass the Golden Horse. The way the conditions of the race have been set Dyce coming in has messed the whole field up, because it’s basically now wait for age at the bottom. Probably every horse (apart from three of them) has got 54kg. When the conditions were changed and the minimum weight upped to 54kg, what it has done is it has made it difficult for the three-year-olds who are really improving. I think this horse is well above his rating. That’s my opinion. I think he can go with the best of them. That’s my honest opinion. But you don’t want to go in a race like that. You find you run third, Quasiforsure (115) for argument’s sake runs fourth, and you end up coming out of the race without the trophy but you’ve got a 115 merit rating. What is the point of that? And then the next race, the Post Merchants, you’ll have 58kg or 60 kg. At this point, I’d rather give him a run in the Durban Dash, restricted to three-year-olds,at Hollywoodbets Greyville, so I can show him Greyville again. And then four weeks later, I’ll run him on July day in the Post Merchants with 54kg on his back. It’s got to be the better plan for the horse. And if he wins the Post Merchants easily, then we can decide to go for the Mercury Sprint at the end of July.”
King Of The Gauls was talked about before his debut and has won four out of his nine starts, including his last two. He looks to be an exciting prospect.
