Beer, Colvin Assess Options For Kosciuszko Hopefuls
Trainer Mitchell Beer is confident he has talented sprinter Jawwaal back on track while Gary Colvin couldn’t be happier with his stable star Another One and now both trainers are considering their options to showcase their Kosciuszko hopes in Sydney later this month.
Trainer Mitchell Beer.
The pair ran one-two in a barrier trial at Wagga on Sunday with Beer asking Jawwaal to be pushed out while Colvin only wanted Another One to cruise around.
While Sydney is the likely next step, both trainers have pencilled in the $35,000 Ian Reid Sprint (1200m) at Wagga on August 26 as a country option for their respective horses plus Beer’s impressive Highway winner Sunrise Ruby.
“He ended last preparation very well and unfortunately prematurely due to injury so he’s been a long time off the scene,’’ Beer said of Jawwaal who was returning from a suspensory and sesamoid injury.
“I think the trial gave us the confidence he’s returning in as good form as he left off.”
The six-year-old, $51 in TAB’s Kosciuszko market, won successive races by big margins at Albury and Wagga in August last year but hadn’t appeared since finishing second in a Benchmark 70 at Flemington on September 23.
Beer said he won’t be asking Jawwaal to clash with Sunrise Ruby but has respective Benchmark 72 races on the Kensington track on Wednesday week on the radar as possible next steps for both horses.
“He trotted up well this morning, I was very happy. He had a good sound out but he still needed to be able to do it and it’s given me the confidence to take him to town first-up as well,’’ Beer said.
“It’s been an effort to get him back to the trials, he’s been brought along slow so he needed the hitout from a fitness point of view.”
Sunrise Ruby has had an easy time of it since she returned to Albury following that eye-catching TAB Highway win on July 31 but will step up her work again this week.
As keen as Beer is to get her a berth in the $1.3m The Kosciuszko (1200m) at Royal Randwick on October 16 he wants to limit the number of trips to Sydney at the moment due to the ordeal required to get them there and back.
“I don’t want to be carting her up there every few weeks trying to prove a point to get in,’’ he said.
“If she gets a slot she gets a slot. It’s not about what I think or what Glen Boss thinks, or the form analysts, it’s whoever gets the slot.”
Country Championships runner-up Another One finished 3-1/2 lengths behind Jawwaal in the 1000m trial and Colvin is tickled pink with how the four-year-old has returned.
If he comes to Sydney it’ll be for a Benchmark 78 over 1200m at Randwick on August 21, otherwise the Ian Reid will be the fallback.
“We’ll play it by ear, he’s going to get a lot of weight in an open handicap and that worries me a bit but I only have to go over the road to run him,’’ Colvin said.
“He seems to be bigger and stronger, you’ve got to remember he was only a three-year-old in the Country Championships.”
The trial was Another One’s second serious hitout having competed in a jump out at home.
“We didn’t ask him to do much, we didn’t let him loose, he pulled up terrific,’’ Colvin said.
“They ran 58.5 for a trial and he was under a hold so I’m pretty happy don’t worry about that.”
The gelding is a $15 chance in the TAB’s all-in Kosciuszko market.
It’s a month until the 14 slot winners are drawn, on September 9, and the $5 tickets are on sale via TAB across the state. For full details visit www.thekosciuszko.com.au.
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