Trainer Darren Weir is leaning towards backing up Humidor and take on Winx in the Group 1 $3m Ladbrokes Cox Plate (2040m) at The Valley on Saturday.
Humidor, above in green colours, could line up against Winx in the Ladbrokes Cox Plate at The Valley. Photo by Ultimate Racing Photos.
Humidor has pulled up okay after running fifth to Boom Time in last Saturday’s Group 1 $3.15m BMW Caulfield Cup (2400m) at Caulfield and Weir will rely on his team at Warrnambool to give him the all the clear on Tuesday morning.
“We’re going to work him in the morning and see,” Weir told racing.com.
“He’s just having a stroll around tomorrow and Jarrod (McLean) will give me the heads up if he’s happy with him.
“He just went to the beach in the morning. He’s come through it good.
“I’ve just got to be happy with him and he’s got to be well within himself.”
Weir was critical of Damian Lane’s ride on Humidor in the Caulfield Cup which saw the five year old closer to the speed that the master trainer would have liked in the early and middle stages.
But Weir will be looking for a new rider if he decides to back up Humidor this week as regular rider Damian Lane will be on the sidelines until midnight on October 30 because of a careless riding suspension he received for causing interference in the Group 3 $150,000 Priceline Pharmacy Coongy Cup (2000m).
“It was certainly not the right way to ride him (Humidor),” Weir said.
Humidor also had a tendency to lay in throughout the race and Weir will be thinking of a plan to rectify that after the addition of a bubble cheeker and a tongue tie failed to keep the gelding racing true in the Caulfield Cup.
The Chris Waller trained Winx dominates the betting for the 2017 Ladbrokes Cox Plate at $1.16 with Ladbrokes.com.au while Humidor is marked as a $26 chance.
Winx is lining up for her twenty-second straight win and a third consecutive Ladbrokes Cox Plate victory after demolishing her rivals in the 2015 and 2016 runnings of ‘The Weight For Age Championship’.
The glamour mare has strung together twenty-one consecutive wins, her last two at Group 1 level in the $500,000 Colgate Optic White Stakes (George Main Stakes) (1600m) at Randwick on September 16 and in the $500,000 Seppelt Turnbull Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on October 7.
Early market order for the 2017 Ladbrokes Cox Plate at Ladbrokes.com.au: $1.16 Winx, $17 Folkswood, Gailo Chop, Happy Clapper, $21 Royal Symphony, $26 Humidor, $34 Aloisia, Johannes Vermeer, $41 Bonneval, $51 or better the rest.
