The Forgive Files – March 9

This week’s edition of The Forgive Files takes us to the March 9 meetings at Flemington and Warwick Farm.

Flemington

Glass Harmonium: He set a strong tempo early on (the final 600 was only covered in 35.84 seconds) when jumping from 1400 metres to 2000 second-up. While 2000 metres is his optimum distance, he has only two wins from 20 attempts when either first-up or second-up, compared to three wins and three seconds from 10 races thereafter. As a winner and runner-up in the last two Mackinnon Stakes, this was the right race for him to be in – he just would have been better suited arriving here either third or fourth-up.

Rose Pattern: She crossed from a wide barrier to lead the field and despite trying to stack them up (the opening 1000 metres was covered in a 1:03.05 dawdle), she simply didn’t run the trip right out. That is now four unplaced runs for her over 1600 metres, compared to five wins and four placings from 15 starts over shorter trips. If a return to shorter course events (most likely next preparation, as this was her tenth run of this campaign) is on the cards, she can once again be backed.

Sheila’s Star: Given that British General and Star Of Giselle shared the early running with here and then beat her home by almost five lengths, the pace of the race was not what brought her undone. However, two other factors warrant mentioning. Firstly, she now has no wins and two placings from eight runs at Flemington, compared to five wins and four placings from 17 runs elsewhere. In addition, she has one win and four placings from 13 starts on good-rated tracks, compared to four wins and two placings from 12 starts on tracks rated dead or worse. She needs to get away from Flemington and find softer ground.

Warwick Farm

Appearance: She ran strongly when resuming, but that was on a very heavy track, and she may well have been feeling the effects of that ‘gut buster’ on Saturday. Moreover, her second-up stats are very poor (in relative terms) – no wins and one placing from four attempts, compared to four wins and two placings from seven other races in her career. Finally, she came from the tail of the field at the 400 in a race where the first three at the turn were the first three home.

Zedlion: He crossed and led from barrier nine, which is not consistent with his usual pattern of racing in the front half but taking a sit on the leaders. The big thing that he was missing on Saturday though was rain affected ground – he now has one win and seven placings from 18 starts on good-rated tracks, compared to five wins and three placings from 15 starts on tracks rated dead or worse. If he can strike another wet track in this grade and around the 1400-1600 metre range, he can win again.

Famous Seamus: He was trapped wide in a race devoid of any real speed (leader Skyerush won the race), but I’m also now convinced that he is simply not a good first-up horse. While he won on his career debut, thus padding his first-up stats, his sixth on Saturday was his first top-ten finish in three subsequent fresh efforts. He does have an excellent second-up record (two wins and a third from three attempts, including a quick bounce back last preparation to win at Listed level), so he can probably be forgiven this run.

Thanks to Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images AsiaPac for use of the photo