RACING Maximum Weights Help Great Sensation

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29388, 15 December 1960, Page 5

RACING Maximum Weights Help Great Sensation

Great Sensation has won two rich weight-for-age races since he ran third with 9-1 in the Wellington Cup last January, but he can carry only 41b more in the Timaru Cup and 61b more in the Dunedin Cup, two of the main races at South Island holiday meetings. The Timaru Cup has had a 9-5 maximum in recent years, and this year the Dunedin club has introduced a 9-7 maximum for its cup. This development appears to be aimed at keeping the Winga'tuitrained Great Sensation on his “home ground” for a start of the holiday racing.

Besides the 9-5 maximum there is a 7-3 minimum in the'Timaru Cup, which means that Great Sensation will not have to concede more than 301 b. Yet he bad to give away up to 291 b to the best available New Zealand stayers in the last Wellington Cup.

The Dunedin Cup has a 7-0 minimum, so there is 351 b between Great Sensation and the horses on the minimum.

Great Sensation’s holiday programme has not been announced yet, and his activities at the Dunedin meeting might be confined to a start in the James Hazlett Gold Cup, a race he won last year. He did not run in the Dunedin Cup last year when he was given 9-6 but he won the Invercargill Gold Cup in between his victory in the James Hazlett Gold Cup and his Wellington Cup third. Since the Wellington Cup he has won the Trentham Stakes and the Canterbury Cup. Handicaps with fixed minimums usually mean that the lightweights are closer to good winners than would otherwise be the case, and that situation sparks off some feeling among connexions of the light-weights. But clubs are finding that one Great Sensation attracts more interest and a heavier volume of betting than half a dozen horses at the tail of the handicap. It is very unusual to find that the horses on the minimum are exclusively young graduates from hack class. They usually include has-beens and fading stars, some of which would not win with six stone. Chance For Ouite Able One marked effect of a 9-7 maximum in the Dunedin Cup and the presence of Great Sensation in the "entries is eyide.n* in the weighting of the Riccartontrained Quite Able He is in the Dunedin Cup with 7-9 He carried 21b more when he ran third in the New Zealand Cup, and he has since been a close and unlucky second at Ash-

burton with 8-8 which was 151 b above the minimum.

On weights Quite Able stands a first-class chance of winning the Dunedin Cup, which would qualify him for entry in the Wellington Cup. He will probably be outright favourite if Great Sensation does not run.

Rustic may not be one of Quite Abie’s Dunedin Cup rivals. She might do her holiday racing in the North Island, but the efforts of Quite Able and others could improve the good record of Canterbury horses in the Dunedin Cup. Liban won the race for Southland last year, but he was only breaking a notable sequence of victories by Canterbury-trained horses.

If Great Sensation drops out f the field Valaris will be Otago’s brightest hope. The Oamaru-trained Valaris has 8-0 in the Dunedin Cup, and carried that weight when he ran third behind Oreka and Rustic in the Watkins Handicap at Trentham in October. A fourth in the Fendalton Handicap under 8-10 (7-7 minimum) was Valaris’s best in three starts at the New Zealand Cup meeting. Evidently three strenuous races at Riccarton did not affect him. for he showed fine zest for a second against the sprinters at Hororata last Saturday.