Cassidy sets sights on 100 Group One wins

Wednesday 18 September 2013, 5:31pm

Jim Cassidy will get the chance to celebrate a unique milestone at Randwick on Saturday following Chris Waller's decision to start Hawkspur in the George Main Stakes.

Waller has confirmed the Queensland Derby winner will take his place in the 1600 metre feature, rather than the Hill Stakes (2000m).

If Cassidy triumphs he will join only two other Australasian riders to have ridden 100 or more Group One winners.

The Australian record of 119 is held by George Moore with Roy Higgins (104) the other member of the elite club.

Cassidy brought up his 99th career Group One at Rosehill last weekend when he combined with Waller to claim the Golden Rose aboard Zoustar.

Early markets suggest the trainer and jockey will again be celebrating with Hawkspur, a $2.70 favourite.

TAB spokesman Glenn Munsie expects the Cassidy factor to have a significant bearing on totalisator betting given a predicted weight of sentimental support.

"The fact he's going to be on a favourite to ride his 100th winner, Hawkspur is going to be short the tote," Munsie said.

Hawkspur was a dominant last-start winner of the Chelmsford Stakes, run over the same course and distance of the George Main.

However, Munsie has questioned whether there should be such a price discrepancy between the four-year-old and Streama ($7.50) who beat him home at her only start this campaign in the Warwick Stakes.

"Is he entitled to be so much shorter than a horse like Streama who hasn't had that extra run and couldn't possibly get as bad a run as she did at Warwick Farm where she had to cart the field up to Rain Affair?" Munsie said.

"The thing about this race is there doesn't look to be any great speed."

"It's more a battle of tactics than anything else."

The Guy Walter-trained Streama looks the likely leader and will be striving for her first Group One success as a mare.

Her two wins at the top level came in her three-year-old season.

She is one of two mares in the George Main along with Hawkspur's stablemate Royal Descent.

Dissident will be striving to become the first three-year-old to win since Viscount in 2001 after trainer Peter Moody confirmed he will back-up from his courageous second in the Golden Rose.

Tim Clark has been given permission to ride the colt 0.5kg over his 50.5kg.

– 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 »