Tunes primed for 3200 metres at the Farm
An impressive trackwork gallop has much-travelled Tunes primed to farewell Queensland with a stakes win at Eagle Farm.
Tunes will be contesting his third 3200 metre race in four months when he tackles Saturday’s Listed Queensland Cup.
The seven-year-old gelding was originally trained by Peter Snowden when he was in charge of the Darley team.
Snowden considered him promising enough to run him in the 2012 Queensland Derby where he finished mid field.
After being sold, Tunes went to Murray Bridge trainer Grant Young, a respected former South Australian jumps jockey, who won four races with him at distances up to 2500m.
However, Tunes’ best run was a photo-finish second to Purple Smile in the Group Two Adelaide Cup (3200m) on March 14.
Tunes was sent to NSW trainer Danny Williams for a crack at the Randwick Stayers Cup (3200m) where he finished fifth on June 11.
Connections then moved Tunes to Caloundra trainer Andrew Williamson with the Queensland Cup in mind.
Williamson said it would be wise to ignore Tunes’ only run for him when the gelding was a well-beaten 10th in the Caloundra Cup (2400m) last Saturday week.
“He got in the wrong part of the track that day and I don’t know if we rode him the right way. I think he is a horse which needs to get out and roll along,” Williamson said.
“Tunes isn’t the type of horse to hold up and sprint home. I will be telling Michael (Cahill) to let him roll along at his own pace and try to outstay them.”
Williamson said Tunes had impressed him with his toughness since coming north.
“He hasn’t left any feed and he did work very well on Tuesday morning. I think if he can run up to his Adelaide Cup effort he s going to be hard to beat,” he said.
Tunes is set to head back south after the Cup which is the only 3200m race in Queensland.
“He looks the type of horse which might even end up a jumper but there is certainly nothing left in Queensland for him,” Williamson said.
Williamson has a reputation for getting the best out of older geldings with the most recent example Darci Be Good who won three open company races after joining his stable.