Black Type racing at Caulfield on Boxing Day and Flemington on New Year’s Day are the feature Melbourne meetings over the Festive period, but they aren’t the only cards conducted in the urban area. Moonee Valley will host a meeting this Saturday and the eight programmed events have attracted a thumping 280 nominations.
The Super VOBIS 2YO Plate didn’t have the most of any race (28), but it does count Group 3 Maribyrnong Plate winner Boomwaa among its entries.
The David Hayes-trained Akhlaaq, a runaway winner in Adelaide at his most recent outing, highly-rated Mark Kavanagh-trained colt Chivalry and Saturday city placegetters Notonyourlife and My Lucky Strike are among the others entered for the race that carries $50,000 in Super VOBIS and VOBIS Gold incentives.
The race that had the most entries was the $80,000 0-78 Handicap (1200m) with Darren Weir’s Sydney recruit Our Hand of Faith and his stablemate King Buddy entered along the promising Stereosonic, last start Moonee Valley winners Fight to the Line and Daybreak, plus Prince Stratum.
Two other races – the $80,000 0-78 Handicap (1600m) and $80,000 benchmark 70 (2040m) – received 48 nominations each.
The day’s $100,000 features are the 1000m handicap for fillies and mares and a benchmark 78 handicap for the three-year-olds over 1600m.
Last-start Flemington winner Kiss Me Ketut heads the nominations for the latter with Caulfield Saturday winner Countersnip and Jessy Belle, winner of the $50,000 Inglis Bonus at Moonee Valley last time out, are among his potential rivals.
The Mick Price-trained Halle Rocks, last year’s Thousand Guineas Prelude winner Lady of Harrods, Black Type winner Prettyhappyaboutit, the classy Royal Bender, in-form Danestroem and dashing 55 Second Challenge winner Sassy Tycoon are among the entries for the fillies race.
Full nominations for all races on the Moonee Valley card, acceptances for which will be taken at 9.30am tomorrow, are available via the link