Racing analyst Daniel O’Sullivan has Earthquake on top of his 2015 Oakleigh Plate tips, but he believes that enigmatic sprinter Lord Of The Sky represents the best value in betting markets for the Group 1 event.
Lord Of The Sky will make his long-awaited Group 1 debut in the 2015 Oakleigh Plate. Photo by: Race Horse Photos Australia
Lord Of The Sky was touted as a potential Group 1 winner when he scored three race wins from his first four starts, but since he finished at the tail of the field in the Listed W.J. Adams Stakes (1000m) at Caulfield last year he has been a very frustrating horse for punters and has been beaten as an odds-on favourite on three occasions.
The Danerich entire has not recorded a race win since he took out the Group 3 Sir John Monash Stakes (1100m) at Caulfield in July last year, but O’Sullivan told RSN that Lord Of The Sky has shown Group 1 ability in the past and is worth a bet at his current Oakleigh Plate odds of $15.
“Lord Of The Sky is certainly a bookies horse, but on his day he can run up genuine Group 1 performances,” O’Sullivan said.
“The problem is that he hasn’t now done that for a long time and you just don’t know when he is going to come back to that, if at all.
“He is certainly capable of winning this race and if you thought like speculating then around that $13 or $14 mark you could do a lot worse than having a small investment there.”
While O’Sullivan feels that Lord Of The Sky represents good value in Oakleigh Plate betting markets, he still believes that Godolphin filly is the most likely winner of the Group 1 event.
Earthquake was unable to find her best form during the 2014 Spring Racing Carnival, but she has performed well in two barrier trials at Cranbourne this preparation and O’Sullivan believes that she will be very hard to beat in the Oakleigh Plate if she is able to replicate her two-year-old form.
“I think that Earthquake is justifiably the favourite,” O’Sullivan said.
“She has trialed up well for this and she looks likely to return better than what we saw last spring when she was probably one and a half to two lengths below her best even taking into account the day she won at Caulfield there, which had plenty of merit.
“If she runs up to that performance last spring I think that she is right in the finish here and if she can come back a little bit better towards some of those figures that we saw during her two-year-old season then I think she is very hard to beat in this race.”
Earthquake is currently available at 2015 Oakleigh Plate odds of $5 with Ladbrokes and is a narrow favourite from Vain Queen ($6), Atmospherical ($8), Shamal Wind ($9), A Time For Julia ($9.50).
