Surgery key to Wine Tales return to racing
Chris Waller’s stable may be forced to wait for a drier track to measure Wine Tales’ racing return.
Sydney’s leading stable may be forced to wait for a drier track before it can properly measure the success of Wine Tales’ return to racing after two operations.
After throat surgery and a procedure to remove bone chips, it will be a new-look Wine Tales who will resume on a surface worse than the leading yard is hoping for at Rosehill on Saturday.
“She’s always been highly tested and it might just actually be her time. She’s never really been in during winter,” trainer Chris Waller’s racing manager Charlie Duckworth said.
“But ideally we’d like to see the track get back to soft before we get too excited about her.
“She’s come back in really well. It’s all systems go with her, that’s for sure.”
Wine Tales takes on stablemate McCreery in the Pacific Boating Handicap as she tries to win for the first time in 18 months.
That success came at the expense of another stablemate, the subsequent Group One Railway Stakes winner Good Project.
But the mare has been a frustration for her stable ever since, compounded by four placings at Group Three level.
McCreery seems good enough to follow in the hoofsteps of some of Waller’s better imports after making a favourable impression at both of his Australian starts.
Racing in the silks that have earned fame thanks to Winx, McCreery resumes after getting through soft ground to win in city midweek class at Gosford in March.
“We like him a lot. He is a horse who has a bit of class about him,” Duckworth said.
Wine Tales and McCreery are among 18 Rosehill acceptors for Waller but only Marenostro is at the top of betting as he tries to make it back-to-back wins in the FIIG Handicap.
Marenostro will take one of the best wet-track records into a meeting tipped at some stage to be run in rain with six starts in heavy going returning three wins and the same amount of placings.
The Jason Coyle-trained Office Bearer will be among Marenostro’s opposition.
Office Bearer was also an acceptor for the QTC Cup at Eagle Farm, but Coyle is more than happy to stay at home with one of his most recent stable additions.
Matthew Smith has followed Coyle’s lead in scratching Frill Seeking from a Queensland Oaks day support race to run the mare at Rosehill.