Hard track sees Super Cool out of Caulfield Cup

Flemington trainer Mark Kavanagh won’t send Super Cool around in the Group 1 $2.65m BMW Caulfield Cup (2400m) at Caulfield on Saturday after the four year old failed to stretch out on the hard surface last Saturday.

Super Cool won't be taking his place in the Caulfield Cup.

Super Cool won't be taking his place in the Caulfield Cup. Photo by Sarah Ebbett.

Super Cool finished third to star stablemate Atlantic Jewel in the Group 1 $400,000 Cathay Pacific Caulfield Stakes (2000m) at Caulfield with Kavanagh reluctant to send the Australian Cup winner around again on a similar surface on Saturday.

“He felt the track last Saturday as it was pretty hard. I don’t see it improving again on Saturday,” Kavanagh told the Herald Sun.

Super Cool was beaten five lengths when a fading third and Glen Boss also wasn’t happy with the start of the track.

“I took it up with the stewards because we can’t have the best horses running around on tracks like that, especially when we want to see them next week, and in the weeks after that,” Boss said in his Herald Sun column.

“Super Cool went OK yesterday in chasing Atlantic Jewel. But the horse really felt the ground.”

Boss was also suggesting that more water could have been put on the Caulfield track prior to the start of the ten race program especially with the weather forecast indicated that it was going to be a dry windy day.

Caulfield was rated a dead 4 at the start of the meeting and Boss said that it was definitely a good 3 well before the stewards upgraded it after race three.

“I know (track manager) Jason Kerr put 8 mills on it on Friday, but you have got to give these tracks a serious drink when the weather forecast is exactly what it turned out to be yesterday,” Boss wrote on Sunday.

Boss was full of praise for Atlantic Jewel as he watched her cruise past Super Cool, saying that she deserves to be favourite for the Group 1 $3m Sportingbet Cox Plate (2040m) at Moonee Valley on October 26.

“I tried to chase Atlantic Jewel home in the Caulfield Stakes on Super Cool, but she was just extraordinary,” Boss wrote.

“The way she went, it’s easy to see why she is the clear favourite for the Cox Plate. She was exceptional between the 400m and 200m and she just went away from them.”

Super Cool is likely to line up in the Cox Plate along with Atlantic Jewel with the softer Moonee Valley surface more to his liking.

 

 

 

About The Author

Mark Mazzaglia

Mark is a passionate journalist with a life-time involvement in the racing industry. He spent many years as an analyst and form expert at the Courier Mail and also has hands-on experience working with some of Queensland’s top trainers.