Dontpokethetiger set for easy coast kill
CONNECTIONS of Dontpokethetiger are still hunting an Australian black type win, despite passing on this weekend’s Sunshine Coast Guineas.
The team elected to start the filly in a $A40,000 Benchmark 85 handicap rather than running for double the money in the Listed Sunshine Coast Guineas.
Trainer Peter Rudkin said he did not feel Dontpokethetiger had the capabilities to take out the Guineas at this stage of its career.
“We’ve gone for the weaker option as I felt the Guineas was a very strong field and our horse has only won $50,000 and some of the others have won $350,000,” trainer Peter Rudkin said.
“The handicap race we’re in has fallen away a bit and she is a very good chance to run in the first three. If she does, we’ll stay on and run her in a Listed race in three weeks’ time at Doomben, but if she can’t then she will come home.”
A multiple stakes placegetter in New Zealand, Dontpokethetiger tailed a small field home in her Australian debut at the Sunshine Coast under rider Robbie Fradd, who was scolded by the trainer for his ride.
“She had 60kg to carry and she’s a free-going filly,” Rudkin said.
“They were crawling in front and she was reefing and bounding and he kept holding her up.
“It couldn’t have been any worse, I was very annoyed and told the stipes so. That’s why we’re bringing Leah Hemi over to ride her.”
Hemi rode Dontpokethetiger in her last three New Zealand outings for placings in both the Group Three South Island Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes and in the Listed New Zealand Bloodstock Airfreight Stakes.
The Riccarton filly’s scratching from the Sunshine Coast Guineas has promoted the Lance Noble-trained last-start winner Save The Date to second on the ballot.
Should she not make the field, she will oppose Dontpokethetiger in the 1400 metre Benchmark event.