Atticus Finch pictured winning the Betway Summer Cup under Calvin Habib (JC Photos)
Alec Laird will try and have his Betway Summer Cup winner Atticus Finch ready in time for the Gr 1 Premier’s Champions Challenge on March 29.
He said, “Turffontein is his track and at this stage I’m going to try and get him to the Premier’s. It’s a two month gap (between the Met and the Premier’s) and we are monitoring how he does. I wish it was a three month gap, but they’ve changed it for some reason, it’s not at the end of the season anymore.”
On the other hand Atticus Finch did not endure a hard race in the WSB Met.
Laird said, “He couldn’t get a good position in the race. It was almost like he needed blinkers to get him into the race, because he hardly had a race. When he came back he wasn’t blowing and he weighed the same as he did going in. The Met 2000 is not as hard as the Turffontein 2000. He used to be effective at 1600, but I think it has become too short for him as an older horse (he finished 11,10 lengths back in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate.) The Met wasn’t a gruelling race for him, he ran a good race in a way to run just 3,15 lengths back, but it wasn’t his race.”
He said about Hollywoodbets Durban July ambitions for the Master Of My Fate gelding.
“He finished a 1,50 length second in the Consolation race last year. Now that he’s gone up in the weights, I suppose we will have to have a crack at the July, there’s nowhere else to go.”
Atticus Finch is merit rated 121, so he could get into the July with a nice weight. He finished two lengths behind See It Again in the Met and will get 3,5kg from him in the July as things stand, so he could be an interesting runner.
