Rosehill Gardens will host the first metropolitan race meeting of the 2013/2014 racing season this Saturday, August 3.
A healthy 103 nominations were received for the meeting which features the $100,000 Listed Quality Winter Challenge as part of an eight race program.
The Winter Challenge, held over 1500m, features winner of the Group 3 Hawkesbury Gold Cup and Group 3 Spring Stakes Darci Be Good as well as winner of the Listed Winter Stakes, Under The Sun.
A total of eight stakes winners have been nominated, with several horses such as Ironstein, which won the Group 3 Queen Elizabeth at Flemington, winning Group or Listed races interstate.
Interesting additions to the nominations have been the three French horses which could potentially contest the event.
Bayrir, from the Chris Waller stable and Less Is More and Prince Cheri, both from David Vandyke’s stable outfit, have had just a few runs between them in Australia.
Despite being the highest rated horse in the field (103), Bayrir has not even started in Australia, instead coming over via Europe, where he was a Listed and Group 2 winner before being shuttled to America, where he took out the Group 1 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington.
Both of Vandyke’s entrants have at least had a run on Australian turf, with Less Is More having started racing in Australia in September 2012 and Prince Cheri winning in stunning fashion on debut at Canterbury in March this year.
Down south, Kembla Grange received 141 nominations for their eight race meeting, which will herald in racing on the provincial circuit for the new racing season.
Source : Racing NSW
