The older horses Big Duke, Chief Ironside, and Sixties Groove were foaled in Great Britain and Ireland, and won the first races of their careers in Britain before being exported to Australia.
They are all trained by Kris Lees, have won group-level races, and started, with mixed results, in Group 1 races in the last year. They are the three highest-weighted horses in Friday’s $103,200 Scone Cup at a mile at Scone Racecourse, north of Sydney.
Gytrash is at home at Morphettville Racecourse outside of Adelaide, Australia.
A 4-year-old Southern Hemisphere gelding, Gytrash is trained by Gordon Richards at Morphettville, and obviously feels quite comfortable racing there. A winner of 8 of 18 starts, Gytrash has won 3 of 9 starts at Morphettville, including the Group 3 Irwin Stakes on April 18, his third stakes win.
The English bookmakers, at least, aren’t seeing much separating most of the 13 3-year-olds entered in the Group 3 Prix Texanita, featured race Wednesday on a 10-race program at Chantilly.
Tuesday afternoon, 10 of the intended participants were priced between 4-1 and 12-1 in this six-furlong sprint. Wanaway was listed as the mildest of favorites at 4-1, but a look through the form of the race suggests she holds no apparent edge, save a potential fitness advantage.
Head Spins was a fast-closing second in a handicap at 5 1/2 furlongs on April 25 at Gosford Racecourse in Australia, missing by a nose to an 18-1 rival.
The narrow loss was the second start of 2020 for Head Spins and may have been an ideal prep for a six-furlong handicap Thursday at Wyong Racecourse.
Enzel did his best Secretariat impression in his career debut last Nov. 19 at Saint-Cloud.
No, really. Enzel had very little speed starting off in a 1 1/4-mile maiden race and still was near the back of the pack three furlongs from the finish. A quarter-mile out he had drawn even with the leader – and at the wire he was 20 lengths best. A colt named Kongastet finished a most distant second and is not a hapless racehorse, and perhaps as much as the competition, heavy ground, over which Enzel glided, helped produce the one-sided victory.
From Argentina by way of Hong Kong, the 7-year-old gelding He Runs Away has found a new home this year with top trainer Chris Waller in Australia.
Even though He Runs Away is winless in four starts for Waller since mid-March, there are signs the well-traveled runner can win for the first time for the stable in a handicap at about 1 5/16 miles on Wednesday at Warwick Farm Racecourse.
A quartet of Class 3 handicaps, races 6 through 9, cap the Wednesday night action at Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong.
All four races are for horses rated 80 to 60. Races 6 and 7 are carded at 1,200 meters, race 8 at 1,800 meters, and race 9 at 1,650 meters, one circuit around the undulating, oblong Happy Valley course. First post for the card is set for 6:45 a.m. Eastern. Live-streaming video and wagering is available at DRFBets.com.
One slight favorite prevailed and a pair of odds-on betting choices floundered as spectator-free racing returned to Longchamp on Monday.
Tropbeau, the narrow choice over Khayzaraan, won the Group 3 Prix de la Grotte by a half-length over Dream and Do, cementing her position as favorite for the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, France’s 1000 Guineas.
German racing restarted last week, which was cool, but England, Ireland, and France are the most important European racing jurisdictions, so Monday marks the return of major European flat racing with several cards across France. Easily the best of them is a 10-race program at Longchamp that includes three stakes, two of which are Group 3 preps for the French 1000 and 2000 Guineas, and the Group 2 Prix d’Harcourt, which brings out Sotsass, third-place finisher in the 2019 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and until proven otherwise the leading older horse in France.