ARENTEE BOOKS A PLACE IN THE ARCHER

By Graham Potter | Thursday, April 18, 2024

Trainer Chris Meagher will take Saturday’s Doomben winner Arentee to Rockhampton to contest the $775 00 on April 28.

Arentee, a seven-time winner, was dominant at Doomben, in spite of chasing from a number eleven barrier draw, when striking third-up and stepping up from 1200m to 1350m.

It was a win of some significance, not merely because of the $61 000 that went into Arentee’s prize-money account, but because it reaffirmed Meagher’s belief that the five-year-old chestnut was worthy of a place in the lineup of Queensland’s richest regional race.

“It was only signed and sealed after Saturday’s race,” said Meagher, talking about the slot confirmation for Arentee, “but I’d been working on it for about three months.

“I just put my hand up looking for somebody to choose us, but, to be fair to the horse, I wanted to see him do something this prep first, which obviously he did on Saturday, and then I was straight on the phone trying to secure a slot.

“I got a phone call on Saturday night ... and it was all confirmed on Sunday morning.

“Hopefully now we just draw a nice gate. Obviously, it will be his first time there.

“He’s won seven races and I think in five of them he has jumped and led. We’ll just have to be careful with Rocky being a big, long straight. He’ll straighten and then there’s still 600m to go ... but he is in a good headspace and in good order, so I’m looking forward to it.”

With Caulfield Cup winning jockey and four-time Singapore Jockey Premiership winner Vlad Duric, who partnered Arentee to victory at Doomben with a peach of a ride, staying with the horse, chances are Arentee will get every assistance from the saddle in his quest for this feature race success.

Duric, who has wasted no time in getting the scoreboard rolling since kicking off the new phase of his career in Queensland at the start of the month (after relocating from Singapore), rode three winners at Doomben on Saturday.

At the end of Saturday Duric had not only won four times from fourteen rides (that’s a 28.5 percent winning strike-rate), but there was not one favourite in amongst those winners ... in fact two of the were at juicy double figure odds of $13 and $21.

Clearly Duric’s presence and all-around expertise will bring added value to the quality of The Archer in a rider lineup which also includes, amongst others, Melbourne Cup winner Michael Rodd, three-time Golden Slipper winner Tommy Berry and recent Doncaster Handicap winner Tyler Shiller.

More articles