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STAY ON TRACK - SELECTIONS

The spotlight is firmly with Kembla Grange for Saturday's 10-race stand-alone meeting that features the $1 million The Illawarra Mercury Gong (1600m) where the luckless Territory Express is the $4.80 TAB favourite ahead of Big Dance winner Gringotts ($5), Victorian Steparty ($6.50) and the Joe Pride-trained grey Lekvarte ($8).

The rail is in the TRUE position with the track rated a Soft 6. Clear skies are predicted up until Saturday with a sunny 29 degrees forecast for Illawarra's biggest raceday of the year.

This week’s selections: BG

BEST BET
Race 6, No.13 - BLAZING HARRY ($4 favourite on TAB)

Saturday 23rd November – KEMBLA GRANGE

3. TAVI TIME ($3.90 favourite on TAB) didn’t have any excuses in the Big Dance. He stalked the speed as a well backed $3.50 chance but didn’t couldn’t match it with the likes of Gringoots and Vivy Air. The five-year-old was solid in defeat but is capable of better. Prior to that he beat up a field at Warwick Farm as an odds-on favourite and that win provided the necessary evidence that he was somewhere near back to his best. The Kris Lees-trained gelding drops back to benchmark company and the trade off there is a hike in the weights but that is offset after the claim of Ben Osmond. Tavi Time is a proven weight carrier and the only previous time he has raced at Kembla Grange was on debut. The track should suit.

3. TERRITORY EXPRESS ($4.80 equal fav) has a habit of finding trouble in the run. That’s what happens when a horse has no early speed. The gamble has to be whether there is enough in the price to take that risk and there looks to be in The Gong given the depth of the field. The five-year-old loses Zac Lloyd but Jason Collett has ridden the gelding five times in the past. That’s significant as he isn’t a straightforward ride. It was as plain as day that he should have won the Five Diamonds last start when strung up in traffic. Prior to that he again had a hard luck story to tell when flashing home behind Iknowastar, narrowly missing in a tight finish. He just needs clear running to shake the life out of this race and he is only fourth-up on Saturday.

The gamble with 3. HEDGED ($4.80 eq fav) is whether he is a genuine 1000m horse. The fact that he presents here first-up for Mick Price & Mick Kent Jnr in a $300,000 sprint race at a stand-alone Saturday meeting suggests this is somewhat of a target race. The four-year-old has looked sharp in two trials and in the latest of those heats he was 900m back to 740m. He does have a dominant 1000m win to his name but that was in his second campaign some 13 months ago. The last time we saw him at the races he was an all-the-way winner over 1350m at Ipswich. And the last time he raced in New South Wales he made up a stack of late ground behind Joliestar in the Arrowfield Sprint during The Championships. There is an easy argument to be made that he is the best horse here but the niggle is that 1000m races tend to be won by 1000m horses.

9. STARMAN ($8.50) hasn’t won for 149 weeks. Perhaps not the best way to begin a spiel about why a horse can win but it’s buyer beware. That said, the six-year-old has placed in seven of his past 12 starts and three of those were by less than a length. He resumed at Rosehill two weeks ago and caught the eye, flashing home into fifth behind the flying Fire Star. He’ll need to turn the tables on 4. Iron Man ($6.50) but there wasn’t a lot between the pair late. Interesting that Chris Waller elects to claim with Ben Osmond taking the ride and that sees Starman carry 55kg. He hasn’t carried such a weight for years and it could prove an astute move. It’s risk vs reward and there’s enough in the price to take the punt that he can break a long run of outs.

View final fields with full form & race replays for Kembla Grange here