Northern horses should do well

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33816, 12 April 1975, Page 8

Northern horses should do well

If form follows the same pattern as it did on Marlborough Cup day 12 months ago horses from North Island stables are in for a good innings at Blenheim today.

On a nine-race programme, one in divisions, last year, the tally, in the north’s favour, was seven to three. With the Pollard Apprentices’ Handicap in divisions today the Marlborough Racing Club will provide similar fare. Last year’s winners for North Island stables which are engaged in today’s fields (are Frederik, Clarindella, ■ Aka’s Pride, Red Gurkha and Montarel.

Red Gurkha will be going for his second successive Marlborough Cup victory and, along with Elsthorpe and Henselite, should give

I the southern stayers plenty to do in the first leg of the ■T.A.B. double. Clarindella and Aka’s Pride, which both won two races apiece in minor events at this meeting last year, have made sufficient progress since to have earned, open-sprint rating. Today; these two will be rivals in ( the D. L. Duncan Handicap, second leg of the main double. And no one will be sur(prised if Frederik, tor all his recent poor form, carries top-weight of 66.5 to victory (in the first race on the card,; ■the Henry Redwood High-; weight, and Montarel, whose latest record has also been , pretty bleak, might manage 2000 metres as well as many and better than most of the class-three and foui stayers , in the Vavasour Handicap. But for all their strength! — the north will field more! than 100 horses — they are unlikely to have things ail their own way. Magic Touch, for one, is bound to make her presence feit in the first leg of the T.A.B. double and the northern' sprinters will probably find'-

Surge Again and Scotch William hard to keep out of the' finish of the second leg. Motaway, Darnley Fair and Duntroon are lesser! lights among the southern contenders expected to acquit themselves well.