Anthony Cummings will know just how potent his Australian Guineas team will be after racing in Sydney and Melbourne on Saturday.
Thunder Fantasy emerged as a serious Guineas chance with a winning return last week and Cummings is hoping Forget Maybe and Surge Ahead can press their claims in lead-up runs.
Forget Maybe will resume after a short break in the TAB Rewards Handicap (1400m) at Rosehill with Cummings preferring the race against older horses over the Eskimo Prince Stakes for three-year-olds over 1200m.
“It looks a much better lead-in for the Guineas in Melbourne,” Cummings said.
“The seven furlongs to 1600 metres is plainly a fair bit easier and he’s fit enough.
“So I thought that would probably work out well in terms of getting into the (autumn) carnival (action).”
Forget Maybe, who is owned by Cummings and his wife Bernadette, won two of this only three starts in a late spring campaign.
As a colt by Fastnet Rock, Forget Maybe’s value as a potential stallion will soar if he can progress to stakes grade and beyond.
Surge Ahead will resume as one of the outsiders in the CS Hayes Stakes but the Guineas – and possibly the Australian Cup a week later – is at the forefront of Cummings’s autumn plans.
“Into the Australian Cup it will either be Thunder Fantasy or Surge Ahead while Forget Maybe will come back here for the Randwick Guineas,” he said.
Forget Maybe is a $12 chance in a benchmark race which features the return of Ecuador, equal favourite to win the $3 million Doncaster Mile.
Ecuador was supposed to resume two weeks ago but was scratched on race morning because of a temperature.
At an early $1.60 quote, the four-year-old is the shortest-priced favourite on Saturday’s card.
The appearance of the Chris Waller-trained import Weary adds further interest to the race with the four-year-old arriving in Australia with solid stakes-level form in the 1200m to 1600m distance range in Europe.
– AAP
