Smerdon pair on same path to SA Derby

Tuesday 2 April 2013, 5:26pm

Host Of The Party might be sharper than stablemate Cooldini at Sandown on Wednesday but trainer Robert Smerdon is looking for both to stamp their claims for the South Australian Derby.

Host Of The Party is equal favourite for Wednesday's City Of Dandenong Cup (1600m) on the back of a pleasing first-up run at Sandown two weeks ago.

Both he and Cooldini resumed in the same 1400m race with Host Of The Party closing for fifth behind import Sharalam while Cooldini was ninth.

Host Of The Party showed enough to warrant a Sandown Guineas appearance at his third start in the spring but Smerdon felt he would be better over longer distances this campaign.

"We thought he might get over a bit of ground so we're stepping him up in distance and he might end up in the South Australian Derby," Smerdon said.

"His second start at Flemington last preparation was the one that flagged him as a prospective stayer. He drew wide (over 1800m), got back and made up a lot of ground late to finish fourth."

Smerdon said Cooldini was also on a path to the South Australian Derby but believed Host Of The Party might have the better turn of speed over a mile on Wednesday.

"If you look at their first-up runs, Host Of The Party was sharper and Cooldini's best part was the last part of the race," Smerdon said.

"Hopefully they can both keep progressing to warrant a trip to Adelaide and maybe even Queensland."

Smerdon has seven horses entered for the meeting including last year's Grand National Hurdle winner Brungle Cry who runs in a 2400m flat race.

Brungle Cry is scheduled to step out in a hurdle race at Sandown two weeks later.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »