HORSE RACING
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There's a wall in the Kembla Grange owners' room for maiden winners at the historic South Coast track who graduate to Group 1 glory.
What's not so common is horses who have run in a Group 1 last start who come back to a Kembla maiden.
But it's exactly the formula facing the highly-spruiked Cluster when he steps out at rock bottom odds for the Maiden Plate (1200m) on Saturday.
The three-year-old colt was formerly in the care of Anthony Cummings for his last run in the stallion-making Caulfield Guineas, but has since been transferred to the red-hot training team of Peter Snowden and son Paul.
They sent out Cluster for an easy barrier trial win at Rosehill earlier this month - and want an even easier win under race conditions to shed the tag of Australia's most talented maiden.
"He's competed against a high quality of horse all his life and I think it's about time he just has a win," Paul Snowden said.
"He can use this as a springboard and go on to something a bit better. He's in good order and hopefully he runs well."
Such good order that in-form jockey Josh Parr will ride Cluster before dashing back to Sydney to partner topweight Destiny's Kiss in the Listed Winter Cup (2400m) feature at Rosehill.
Despite kicking off his campaign in a low-key maiden after almost 10 months away from the track, Snowden said he and his father had designs on taking Cluster deep into the spring.
"It's about one run at a time, but we'll see what happens on Saturday and go from there," Snowden said.
"He's been in work for a long time so we've just brought him up nice and steady because he has a long prep ahead of him.
"He wasn't out there to do anything special and he was pretty much out there to do it all himself."