Latest News

It’s always a sign of an above average Highway galloper when their times are superior to benchmark racing on the same day and that was the case with Gallant Star’s performance at Randwick on Saturday.

As visually impressive as the Brett Robb-trained four-year-old was, rounding up the field from well back after tracking wide (with some cover) throughout, his time for the 1200m was some three and a half lengths faster than the Benchmark 78 won by Contemporary.

The speed set in the Highway was significant. Punter's Intelligence data showed they put the first 600m behind them in 34.07 – compare that to the 35.48 run by the two-year-olds in the opener and the 35.56 in the benchmark race and you’re looking at around nine lengths quicker early. And the country horses still ran a faster overall time.

Clearly something had to finish off and it was Gallant Star who clocked a 34.39 last 600m, which was about a length faster than the runner-up Life’s A Party and they put a gap on the rest from a sectional perspective.

It was Gallant Star’s strength at the end that stood out, he ran 11.97 for his last 200m and no other runner went close to breaking the 12 second mark.

Robb won the Newhaven Park Country Championships Final in 2023 with Sizzle Minizzle and this fellow has stamped himself as a real force in the Western District Championships, which is not run until March 17 at Coonamble. So we’ll see him again.

The hectic pace probably lends itself to excusing the run of Bomarea who led them up, it didn’t appear as though that was Plan A in the run but she was left there and couldn’t sustain it up to 1200m.

While on the 1200m events, the two-year-old Parkour impressed with his last to first performance in the Precise Air Handicap. He ran the overall fastest last 600m of the race in 34.18 as well as the individual splits from the 600m to the post.

Zac Lloyd’s front-running ride on Luvoir is worth a look, there’s not a lot of margin for error when you’re opening up large midrace leads and the star apprentice got it just right.

Luvoir ran the slowest last 600m of the TAB Handicap (1400m) of 35.76 – no other horse was anywhere near that time with 34.97 the next slowest. But the damage was done in the first half of the race.

He broke 11 seconds (10.97) from the 1200m-1000m and then ran very low 11s for the next two furlongs as he crept away from the pack so by the time the chasers got going he was too far in front to be run down.

Behind him the fastest last 600m was run by Dynamic Impact (33.93) but he was in another postcode coming around the turn and could only run sixth. The rest of the field all finished at basically the same pace so it’s no wonder Luvoir was able to hold on.

Riyazan had a hard luck story in the Drinkwise Maroubra Mile (1600m) after doing all the work out wide and still having the tenacity to fight hard when Grebeni came off his back to challenge.

The gelding tracked wide and was running the fastest splits between the 1200m-1000m (11.79), 1000m-800m (11.70) and 600m-400m (11.34) where he swept to the lead.

But Grebeni found his back in the run and, as he was entitled to, reeled off the fastest last 400m of 23.01 to get the job done. It’ll be interesting to see if Riyazan can reproduce next time.

Touristic appears just about ready to win. While on face value it appears he had his chance to run down Naval College, the winner did have a perfect run and Touristic had to do all the chasing himself from near the tail of the field as nothing carried him into the race.

He’s run the fastest last 600m of 34.89, over a length faster than the winner. The drop in weight helped his cause and if he happens to meet Naval College again next time it’ll be fascinating as the winner was only second-up but will have to carry more weight.

Fastest last 600m: Acapella Sun 33.12

Watch Punter’s Intelligence at 7pm on Tuesdays on Sky Thoroughbred Central.

Click here to download the Punter's Intelligence app