LEGARTO AND WILD NIGHT SET FOR SHOWDOWN IN THE $1 MILLION KARAKA MILLION THREE-YEAR-OLD CLASSIC

By Graham Potter | Friday, January 20, 2023

The NZ$1 million Karaka Million Three-Year-Old Classic, which will be contested at Pukekohe on Saturday, puts two star three-year-olds ... Legarto and Wild Night ... on a direct collision course in a 1600m battle for superiority.

It could be a keen battle between them right from the break as they will jump from adjacent barriers. Legarto will jump from barrier number 1. Wild Night has drawn barrier two ... and they are almost as close in the betting with Legarto currently quoted at $2.40 and Wild Night at $2.90.

Legarto will be defending an unbeaten record of five wins from five starts, having already annexed the Group 1 NZ 1000 Guineas and the Group 2 Eight Carat Classic, while Wild Night will be looking to similarly extend his winning sequence to six straight victories, after landing five consecutive wins following his sole defeat on debut.

Talk about being difficult to separate!

But, while these two runners will attract most attention, there are a number of other horses featured in the twelve-strong field who could have the means to upstage the main fancies.

Prowess, who at $9 is the only other runner quoted in single figures, finished third in the Group 1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas and then came out and won the Group 2 Auckland Guineas. She is certainly not there to make up the numbers.

Neither is the $10 chance Sacred Santano, a Group 3 winner whose task, however, is complicated by having to jump from the worst of the draw (barrier twelve out of twelve) ...

Throw in, amongst others, the likes of Dynastic, last year’s Karaka Million Two-Year-Old winner, Devastate, the recent Group 3 Wellington Stakes and Desert Lightning, who finished second in New Zealand 2000 Guineas ... and the wider quality of the field and, therefore the highly competitive nature of the line-up, quickly becomes apparent.

The race, which takes place at 7.28pm (New Zealand local time) on Saturday, can be a stepping-stone to bigger things.

The most successful winner of the Karaka Million in recent times was Probabeel who went on to win a total of thirteen races ... including notable Group 1 wins in all of the Surround Stakes, the Epsom, the Futurity Stakes and the Caulfield Stakes.

In all, Probabeel, who incidentally was also a Karaka million Two-year-Old winner, accumulated $4.3 million in prize-money from twenty-nine starts.