Pont Neuf top chance at Avondale today

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 31

Pont Neuf top chance at Avondale today

Special correspondent

Auckland Pont Neuf will be tested by several older and useful opponents at Avondale today but his class and the concession for him under the weight-for-age scale should make him hard to beat.

Two wins and three seconds from seven starts, even if late in the piece, gave Pont Neuf a pretty good rating as a two-year-old last season.

The way he goes in today’s Keith Burley Plate should be a further pointer to his spring prospects. A win in good style would bring him right into consideration for the Guineas at Ellerslie in about six weeks.

Pont Neuf could well be the only three-year-old in the second leg of the Avondale Jockey Club’s T.A.B. double. The other in the field, Willie Mac, is awaiting re-entry. With his 49kg Pont Neuf will receive up to 9.5 kg from his older opponents and from the leastweighted of them 5.5 kg. On such terms it is hard to believe he. will not acquit himself very well as he has done so regularly.

Certainly Pont Neuf has 1600 m to go. The longest distance he has yet tried is 1300 m. But he runs the shorter distances out so strongly as to leave very little doubt as to his ability over the one at Avon-

dale. This time Pont Neuf is to have a change of rider. Last year’s champion, Lance O’Sullivan is standing in for Gary Stewart, who would be unable to get near the colt’s weight Judged by recent form El Ninio, Jean Gordon and Band Leader will perhaps give Pont Neuf most opposition. Sea Dreamer, her achievements of last summer considered, also has to be respected. El Ninio, a five-year-old gelding, won a class three 1600 m at Ellerslie last Saturday and a 1200 m at Avondale two starts beforehand. Jean Gordon took a class four 1600 m at Te Rapa a fortnight ago

and Band Leader is on a run of form that entitles him to a win before long. El Ninio won by no more than a neck at Ellerslie but it was a solid effort because he had to go wide all the way. Jean Gordon could not have been much more impressive at Te Rapa, running her 1600 out very solidly indeed.

The high point of Sea Dreamer’s achievements has been just a fourth, but notable as it was behind Royal Heights, Empire Rose and Eau D’Etdile in the New Zealand Oaks, and not that far from first. She was afterwards third in the Australasian Oaks, in Adelaide.